A perfectly timed stop and daring two-tire call gave Alpine victory in Fuji’s chaotic 100th WEC race.
The pit call that flipped Fuji
Two hours to go, clouds hanging heavy over Mount Fuji, and the race looked like a straight fight between Peugeot’s patience and Porsche’s pace. Then Alpine made the call that changed everything. The No. 35 A424 ducked to pit lane seconds before a full-course yellow. That timing vaulted the car into clean air while rivals were stuck under the neutralization. From there the job was simple on paper. Guard track position. Nurse two old right-side tires. Keep Peugeot and Porsche at bay. Charles Milesi did all of it with cool hands, easing the gap past seven seconds and keeping it safe to the line. Alpine won by 7.6 seconds. On the series’ 100th race day, a team that had taken its lumps turned the tables. That is how you write yourself into championship season folklore.
Two hours from nowhere
This was not a wire-to-wire clinic. It was a great escape with paperwork. Early in the afternoon, Ferdinand Habsburg tapped the No. 8 Toyota, earned a penalty, and the crew had to swap the Alpine’s nose. That is not the preface to most fairy tales. Yet the timing gods smiled. Paul-Loup Chatin dived for service, the full-course yellow came out, and the Alpine vaulted into clean air while everyone else sat on pit lane under the neutralization. Suddenly the car that had been nowhere near the story was sitting second, staring at a finish it had no business staring at an hour earlier. When Milesi climbed in, the call came through the radio to take only left-side tires at the final stop. Risky. Clever. It bought track position. It also hung the race on tire management and nerves. Milesi aced both.
The left-side tire call that broke the race
Here is the turning screw. Peugeot covered four tires on the No. 93. Porsche did the same on the charging No. 6. Alpine took two. The stop delta put the A424 in clean air with about eight seconds in hand. Milesi eased the gap into double digits, then managed the traffic and the wear without letting the right sides cry for mercy. A late nibble from Mikkel Jensen never became a chomp, and Porsche’s closing speed was real but not enough. Alpine’s split call was the kind that earns the pit wall a standing ovation on Monday debrief. It also honored a week of quiet speed from the A424 and a pre-race Balance of Performance tweak that gave the car a modest power bump. The hardware finally had teeth, and the strategy let it bite.
Safety cars, chaos, and the FCY jackpot
Fuji threw three safety cars and five full-course yellows at the field. The messiest came when Raffaele Marciello’s BMW snapped and smacked the barriers after a Proton Porsche mis-shift. Barrier work followed. Strategies split. Leaders got trapped. Proton even found itself out front for a few laps before the factory cars ran it down. Later, a Valkyrie-on-Aston incident triggered the final safety car at the worst possible time for some title hopefuls and the best possible time for Alpine. That third neutralization preserved the No. 93 Peugeot’s advantage through a stop, pulled Alpine fully into contention, and handed us the final-hour chess match we all wanted. Chaos chooses favorites. On Sunday, it liked light blue.
Penske Porsche’s back-from-17th rescue mission
Seventeenth on the grid usually means aim low and hope for decent points. Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor did not get that memo. The Penske No. 6 sliced through the order, survived a rear clip change for damage, and ate a five-second penalty for a pit infringement without losing its edge. In the last hour, it was the fastest thing not powered by wishful thinking. It hassled the No. 93 Peugeot for second, then ran out of laps to spook Milesi. Third at the line was more than pride. It kept the Porsche crew properly alive in the title chase with one Bahrain round left. That is how you turn a Saturday headache into a Sunday story.
Peugeot’s podium and the sting that got away
Give Peugeot its flowers. The No. 93 was sharp from the jump, then Jean-Eric Vergne muscled to the front after the mid-race resets. The 9X8 carried real pace, and Mikkel Jensen closed hard after Alpine’s two-tire gamble. However, four fresh tires and a traffic-heavy stint left the French cats one pounce short. Second still matters. It makes two straight podiums for the program and confirms that the car is not a one-track wonder. On a day when the race kept shuffling, Peugeot found a way to stay in the lead frame. That does not soften the missed win, but it tells you something about where this group sits heading to Bahrain.
Cadillac’s front-row flex fizzles
Saturday was Cadillac’s party. The JOTA Caddies locked out the front row, Alex Lynn on pole with Earl Bamber close enough to read his dash. Sunday looked good for an hour, then the safety cars shuffled the deck and the V-Series.R got stuck holding twos and threes. The No. 12 led the opening phase, then fell behind on timing and track position. Sixth at the flag was not the reward the front-row statement promised, but it was still a haul of points that keeps the Cadillac narrative trending up late in the season. The lesson is old. You can win qualifying at Fuji. You only win Sunday by catching the yellows right.
Toyota’s bruising home race
This one hurt. Early contact from the eventual winner cut the No. 8 Toyota’s tire, and the penalty handed to Alpine told you race control saw it the same way. From there, the home squad never found clear air. By the end the No. 8 sat two laps down, well outside the points picture. Meanwhile, the sister No. 7 salvaged what it could near the bottom of the top ten. Toyota has banked so much success at Fuji that a bad day feels like an earthquake. It was not that. It was just one of those Sundays where every neutralization tilted the wrong way.
Ferrari’s nightmare keeps Bahrain alive
Ferrari came in with a margin, then tossed points out the window. The factory No. 51 took two track limits penalties and finished outside the points. The privateer No. 83 carried sidepod damage and still ground out ninth after a post-race demotion for Peugeot’s No. 94 kept it there. The net effect was painful. The drivers’ gap shrank, the manufacturers’ lead got thinner, and now Bahrain is no formality. The red cars will like Sakhir more than Fuji. They also know the title is no longer theirs by mere inertia. Momentum wears Alpine blue and Porsche white today.
LMGT3 madness: Corvette cashes in
Let us talk LMGT3, because it turned into a thriller of its own. Vista AF Corse crossed the line first, then copped a five-second time penalty for a pit infringement. Alessio Rovera tried to stretch the gap while tight on fuel, but the stopwatch said no. TF Sport’s No. 81 Corvette Z06 GT3.R, with Charlie Eastwood hustling late, inherited the win by three seconds. Meanwhile, Manthey 1st Phorm’s Porsche had a 20-second cushion before the final safety car vaporized it, so a solid fifth felt like a bad bargain. The points table tightened, and the Corvette boys climbed into the conversation. If you root for bowties like I do, this one felt sweet. Chevy swagger, penalty drama, and a scoreboard swing. Perfect.
The BoP whisper that mattered
Balance of Performance chatter is background noise until it isn’t. Alpine arrived in Japan with a small but real power tweak. The A424 got six extra kilowatts and a friendlier high-speed power curve compared to Austin. Minimum weights stayed the same for the class, but the straight-line deficit looked less rude. No one wins on BoP alone, and anyone who says otherwise did not watch Milesi’s last hour. Still, when you combine a nudge from the rulebook with a perfect pit window and a bold tire split, you get the kind of leap that turns a season.
Why this win lands differently
Alpine has history in the top class, but the previous global WEC victory came with a grandfathered LMP1 at Monza in 2022. This one came with the A424 LMDh, a new-era prototype that has spent much of its life learning hard lessons. On Sunday, it graduated. The crew made the right calls at the right times. The drivers kept their heads when the race tried to shake them. The team banked a moment on the series’ 100th race that fans will talk about each time we come back to Fuji. This was not a do-everything-right parade. It was a survive-everything-better test, and Alpine passed with color.
What it means for Bahrain
The season now barrels toward an eight-hour finale with 1.5x points on the board. The Porsche title push is very real after a 17th-to-third charge. Ferrari’s lead is slimmer in both counts. Manufacturers still have work to do. LMGT3 is close enough to make team managers sweat through their polos. Therefore, pit windows will decide fates, and the conservative call will not cut it. If Fuji taught anything, it is that 2025 rewards the brave. Bring an alternate tire plan, a weather app in your pocket, and a driver who can pass without burning the set. Then hope the safety car blinks at the right time.
Milesi’s cool, the team’s nerve
We talk strategies and penalties because they are easy to quantify. Still, the drive matters. Milesi kept his hands light even as the gap accordion’d with traffic. Chatin’s middle-stint pace reset the table. Habsburg’s early chaos did not snowball because the crew responded with speed on the box and discipline on track. Meanwhile, race control’s decisions gave us the mixed-up board that endurance racing sometimes needs. The net was a feel-good surprise that also felt earned. That is the sweet spot.
When the steering wheel talks back
You could hear the No. 35 in the onboard, tires humming, hybrid whine peaking on the front straight, traffic breaking like surf through Turn 1. That is where this race lived. In the margins, in the moments between calls, in the half-chance that becomes a trophy. Alpine chose risk when everyone else chose comfort. It chose two tires when four felt safe. It chose to pit when the window looked thin. It chose faith in a car that finally had the power to fight. The 100th WEC race wanted a headline. Alpine wrote it.
