Alpine boss Philippe Sinault says that the team is confident that it can reach stint lengths of 12 laps during the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The French squad has previously lacked behind the rival Hypercar squad from Toyota and Glickenhaus in terms of the amount of laps per stint, because the fuel allocation previously did not match the amount of fuel that the grandfathered, ORECA-built LMP1 car could carry in its fuel tank.
Thanks to pre-event BOP change, however, Sinault believes that the team will be able to complete twelve laps per stint, potentially putting them level with their Hypercar rivals.
“We have achieved twelve laps many times,” Sinault answered when pressured on the stint lenghts for the Gibson-powered car. This was despite the fact that the team so far has not done twelve lap-stints during the four practice sessions at the Circuit de la Sarthe.
“Yet, but the game is never to do 12 laps a row,” Sinault said in response. “We have all the [tools] to be sure that we can achieve twelve laps.Thanks to the BOP, and to be honest, it was not possible at the start of the season to achieve twelve or eleven.”
The Alpine boss then clarified that the team’s target is to hit twelve laps under normal circumstances, without extra fuel saving during a stint.
“When I say twelve, it is not with lifting, but in a nominal situation,” he said. “If [we] lift, it could be maybe twelve point one or twelve point two. But at the moment, our target if is not thirteen laps. Our target is twelve, no more.
A likely factor in Alpine’s increased fuel mileage is a pre-event BOP change in which the squad had the amount of energy decreased by rougly eight percent to 844 megajoules per stint.
