Cookie Consent by Free Privacy Policy website Alpine claims a historic pole position and another podium in Portugal
giugno 14, 2021 - Alpine Matmut

Alpine claims a historic pole position and another podium in Portugal

Comunicato Stampa disponibile solo in lingua originale. 

  • Alpine Elf Matmut #endurance Team scores its second consecutive podium finish in the 2021 FIA World #endurance Championship season. 
  • Forty-four years and a day since the last pole position of a factory prototype entered by the brand, an official Alpine starts ahead of the rest of the field in a major #endurance race. 
  • Fastest in qualifying, the A480 entrusted to #nicolaslapierre, André Negrão, and Matthieu Vaxiviere also clocked the best lap in the race during the 8 Hours of Portimão. 

After finishing second at Spa-Francorchamps, the Alpine Elf Matmut #endurance Team travelled to the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve to confirm its position as a front-runner in the FIA #wec

Thanks to the information gathered in Belgium and the meticulous work carried out in the Bourges workshops, the team fine-tuned the A480 to adapt to the new balance of performance in force from the beginning of free practice. #nicolaslapierre, André Negrão and Matthieu Vaxiviere immediately showed their ability to dominate the Portuguese track while progressively lowering the reference time: 1:33.781s in FP1, 1:32.074s in FP2, and 1:31.652s in FP3. 

The team was optimistic for qualifying and Mathieu Vaxiviere built on this momentum by getting on with the job in the ten-minute session. With a lap of 1:30.364s, the Frenchman took Alpine’s first overall pole position in the FIA World #endurance Championship and the first for a prototype officially entered by the brand since the 1977 Le Mans 24 Hours. 

Nicolas Lapierre started the eight-hour race under sunny skies on Sunday. After a perfect start, he quickly distanced himself from the chasing pack by being efficient and incisive in traffic despite a radio problem. #nicolaslapierre was the first of the leaders to stop and was back in the lead at the end of hour one before André Negrão, and Matthieu Vaxiviere put in double stints. 

In first place at the end of each of the opening four hours, the A480 led at mid-distance before #nicolaslapierre went back out behind the Toyotas. While the A480 had to stop more often than the competition, the efforts of the three drivers - successively the fastest in the race – paid off twenty minutes later with a safety car intervention that regrouped the three contenders for the win. 

Nicolas Lapierre began chasing down the Toyotas at the restart and quickly got past Kazuki Nakajima with a superb overtake at turn one. The Frenchman then reeled in and was about to overtake Kamui Kobayashi as he eventually pit in to double his stint. Using different strategies, the three crews took turns leading while playing a real game of chess. Unfortunately, a full course yellow shortly after the team's final pit stop gave the leaders the necessary margin to control the end of the race. 

André Negrão was behind the wheel for the final sprint and sealed the podium in the A480, just over a minute behind the winners, despite two more stops than the winning trio and one more than the runners-up. However, this result consolidates second place for the Alpine Elf Matmut #endurance Team in the general classification. 

The next meeting of the season will take the A480 and its three drivers to Italy for round three of the FIA World #endurance Championship: the 6 Hours of Monza (16-18 July). 

Further information in the press release to download

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