As Motorsport.com Italia reports, Alpine let slip a dominant 6 Hours of Fuji victory in the FIA WEC 2026 season because the French manufacturer refused to sacrifice either of its A424 LMDh machines during the final round of pit stops. Having controlled the sixth round from the very start, the pair of Alpine Hypercars locked out the front two positions as the race entered its final hour. It was looking like a straightforward triumph until a heavy crash involving the McLaren #58 brought out a safety car that lasted nearly 30 minutes while marshals recovered the stranded car driven by Finn Gehrsitz.
That late caution completely flipped the script. Toyota seized the moment with the TR010 Hybrid #8, fueling up with less energy and opting against fresh tires to vault Ryo Hirakawa into the lead. Toyota Gazoo Racing lineup Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, and Ryo Hirakawa reaped the rewards of that gamble. Meanwhile, Alpine took a far more cautious route by double-stacking both cars into the pit lane simultaneously for two new tires ahead of the final sprint.
That conservative strategy immediately hurt them. The Alpine #35 driven by Charles Milesi dropped to third behind the Toyota #8 and the BMW #15, while the leading Alpine #36 plummeted to fifth behind the Aston Martin #009. Victor Martins mounted a stunning charge in the #36 machine he shared with Jules Gounon, hunting down Hirakawa all the way to the checkered flag. He missed out on the win by a razor-thin 0.591 seconds, resulting in the closest finish in World Endurance Championship history.
Alpine Sporting Director Nicolas Lapierre explained that team spirit won out over raw pragmatism when it came to the final service. Admitting it left a bittersweet taste after securing a record 30 points across the weekend, Lapierre took full responsibility for the call. "We didn't want to sacrifice a car, so we brought them both in at the same time and as a result we lost time and were overtaken by some rivals," Lapierre said, noting that they could easily have won the race if they had thrown one car under the bus to prioritize the other.
Traffic in the pit lane only compounded the delay for the leading car. Martins noted that because the #36 entry was right behind its sister #35 car in the lane, the crew had to wait for the mechanics to push the preceding machine back before they could escape. While praising Toyota's opportunistic gamble from the rear of the pit lane, Martins remained immensely proud of the package beneath him. Following a similarly strong showing at Austin, the young Frenchman emphasized that the car felt faultless across changing conditions, even if the final result proved a bitter pill to swallow.
Further down the order, the #35 crew of Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi ultimately came home in fourth place, slipping behind the BMW #15 after the late-race strategic shuffle played out.
