Alpine climbed back to the summit of the FIA World Championship podium in the series’ milestone 100th race at Fuji Speedway today (28 September), as Charles Milesi, Ferdinand Habsburg and Paul-Loup Chatin emerged on top in an epic encounter to claim the French manufacturer’s first victory in more than three years.
In front of a crowd of 66,400 enthusiastic Japanese fans, the #35 crew began the 6 Hours of Fuji from ninth on the 18-strong Hypercar grid, and initially fell down the field after picking up penalties for contact and a pit-stop infringement. The trio gained a crucial break shortly after the race entered its second half, however, when they benefitted from the fortuitous timing of a safety car intervention prompted by a clash between one of the Aston Martin Hypercars and the Heart of Racing Team’s LMGT3 entry.
That elevated Milesi up the order into second, with the Frenchman subsequently settling into a three-way fight for supremacy with Peugeot’s Mikkel Jensen – the #93 9X8 Hypercar the Dane shares with Jean-Éric Vergne and Paul di Resta a long-time leader in Japan – and defending world champion Kévin Estre in the #6 Porsche.
With an hour remaining, Alpine Endurance Team rolled the dice. As the top three came into the pits to make their final stops, the French manufacturer elected to save time by changing only the left-hand side tyres on the #35 car, whereas Peugeot and Porsche both replaced the full set.
That promoted Milesi to the lead, and the Frenchman thereafter produced a flawless performance to keep his pursuers comfortably at bay and take the chequered flag 7.682 seconds clear of Jensen – to the evident delight of his team-mates and crew.
“This means everything,” confessed an emotional Habsburg, whose previous FIA WEC win coincidentally came on the same day as that of Alpine. “Holding this trophy has been in my dreams for quite some time.
“It’s the coolest thing to win a race with two of your best friends in the paddock. Charles and Paul-Loup are not only some of the best drivers, but also the best people that I know. For me, it’s been a long path from breaking my back last year, missing races and struggling to get back up to speed. They have motivated me so much through my own mistakes and moments when I was not doing so well.
“Philippe [Sinault – Team Principal] put us together at a risk because we are completely the wrong size drivers to share a car! Charles and I should never be in a car together, but Philippe trusted our personalities, and it’s because of them all that we were able to win as a team.”
The result represented Alpine’s third overall triumph in FIA WEC, and impressively, the #35 car is the only one in the 2025 Hypercar field not to include a top-level Platinum-graded driver. It also means that for the first time in the championship’s history, four different marques have won in succession – Ferrari at Le Mans, Cadillac in São Paulo, Porsche at COTA and now Alpine at Fuji.
Peugeot celebrated its best result in the series’ top-tier to-date with the runner-up spoils, as Jensen held off a determined Laurens Vanthoor (#6 Porsche Penske Motorsport) in the closing laps. With the sister factory Porsche placing fourth ahead of the #94 Peugeot, Ferrari – neither of whose factory 499P Hypercars troubled the scorers – must wait until the season finale in Bahrain in its quest to clinch a maiden Manufacturers’ world championship crown, while no fewer than four crews remain in contention for Drivers’ honours.
Further down the top ten in the final Fuji classification, there were contrasting fortunes. Aston Martin THOR Team celebrated the Valkyrie’s finest finish to-date in sixth, although it was very much a case of what might have been in a race in which the #009 car shared by Marco Sørensen and Alex Riberas genuinely looked like challenging for the podium, only to concede ground due to a drive-through penalty for a Full Course Yellow infringement and contact.
Qualifying pace-setters Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA dominated the opening exchanges but ultimately flattered to deceive after losing out during the third-hour safety car intervention. The pole-sitting #12 V-Series.R ultimately ended up seventh, one spot ahead of the #8 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing entry, as the much-decorated Japanese manufacturer was unable to produce its usual stellar form on home soil and has now gone an unprecedented seven races without ascending the podium.
The Bapco Energies 8 Hours of Bahrain will take place from 6-8 November.
Check out the full race results from the 6 Hours of Fuji.
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