Motorsport Week spoke with Alpine Hypercar driver Nicolas Lapierre, who reflected on his passion for sportscar racing and more on his illustrious career.
Lapierre currently stands as the longest-serving FIA World Endurance Championship driver to have competed in each season to the current day.
His sportscar chapter, however, began long before the 2012 inaugural season and so the Frenchman showed his commitment with Alpine as they entered the Hypercar category this year.
His successful career accomplishments include two victories at the 12 Hours of Sebring, four LMP2-class wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and two WEC LMP2 titles.
Having recently turned 40, longevity has been but a mere part of his love and passion for sportscars since it became an appealing avenue for him during the late 2000s.
Throughout his single-seater career, he endeavoured in Formula Renault, F3, GP2 and A1 Grand Prix as his sights were – as for many young drivers – set on the glitz and glamour of a Formula 1 drive.
He debuted into sportscar racing in 2007 during his final GP2 season, competing with Team Oreca’s Saleen S7-R GT1 for Team Oreca and his teammates Stephane Ortelli and Soheil Ayari.
“First of all, they were not a lot of young drivers racing [in sportscars],” recalled Lapierre.
“Le Mans and endurance racing was more second part of a career and therefore I was a bit surprised.
“So it was Hugues de Chaunac [founder and boss of Oreca] that called me when I was still racing in GP2.
“… To be honest, I had not a lot of information about Le Mans. I was more focused on single seaters and Formula 1 was the ultimate dream and goal.
“… But it was also my third GP2 season and I could feel that the [F1] path was getting more and more narrow so I was like, okay, maybe it’s good to open up my view a bit and to go and check this race.
“So I went there in 2007 and back at the time it was very different.
“You had to take really good care of the car. I was [told] like ‘Okay, don’t use too much kerb. Be careful with the engine.’
“We had the lap time we had to respect… [3m52s] I think with this Saleen.
“It was super exciting! I think it fitted me much better than single-seaters where I think I was sometimes too nice with people…”
A Macau GP win and two GP2 victories were amidst his single-seater highlights, but sportscar racing became an appealing discipline to pursue.
“… When I went to this race in Le Mans, I felt like ‘Okay I’m alone when I’m in the car but outside of the car I also have two teammates where my wish is that they perform good so the overall result from the car will be better’.
“So clearly I fell in love with this category and the environment as well. Even though the car was not as fun to drive as a GP2, but I think the paddock and the environment was suiting me much better.
“From then, Oreca, Hugues de Chaunac, he asked me, because they were coming back to prototypes, so he wanted me to sign a long-term contract with them.
“And I did agree. I had an option to do another year of GP2 in one of the best teams at the time, but I declined it and I switched to sportscars, which was not very common because at the time, everybody wanted to really focus either DTM or Formula Nippon [currently known as Super Formula] or IndyCar.
“But me, I really fell in love with sportscars and I decided to switch to this back in 2008.
“And since then, I’ve always been racing under sportscars. I always did Le Mans since this time.”
His relationship continued with Oreca when he debuted into LMP1 with an 01 open-top prototype, before the next two years with Peugeot’s LMP1 project.
In fact, Lapierre’s work with Oreca spanned most of his career, including to the current day, with the Alpine A424 LMDh’s chassis developed by Oreca.
More importantly, he spent much of his time in the presence of de Chaunac, whose brand then partnered with Toyota from the beginning of their WEC hybrid project in 2012 to 2015.
“Hugues is very charismatic, he’s completely different than Philippe [Sinault, Alpine Endurance team principal].
“When you first meet with Hugues, it’s a bit scary in a way, because he has a big charisma, and he can be a bit cold as well at the beginning.
“But then when he trusts you and when you feel good with him, he’s also a very nice person.
“And he has also been one of the most important people in my career as well, because we’ve been working together now since many, many years.
“Everywhere I was, Oreca were always involved somehow when I was racing with them.
“So in the end they were already linked between my races in Oreca since 2008, since I switched to endurance racing.”
Lapierre took his first LMP2 Le Mans victory for KCMG in 2015, in an Oreca 05.
Apart from in 2017 when he drove in Toyota’s third TS050 Hybrid LMP1 entry at Le Mans, his career largely transitioned to Alpine in 2016.
Even so, it marked his return to Sinault’s Signatech – or Signature – outfit since 2003.
“I first met Philippe when I was 16 or 17 [years-old].
“I was driving Formula Renault back at the time and he had a very successful team in Formula 3 which one of my dreams was to join and lucky enough, we found an agreement in 2003 for me to join them for my first Formula 3 season.
“And this is when we started working together. It was a very exciting time.
“So our ways split at that time [when he did GP2], but we always stayed in contact. We always stayed very close.
“When my contract with Toyota was ending, I was looking for a new challenge and they wanted to have a driver with some experience training them in LMP2.
“We won three times Le Mans together and that was quite a successful story.”
During the course of 2023, Lapierre spent his time with the development at his own Cool Racing LMP2 team as team principal, although refrained from racing apart from Alpine’s LMP2 WEC commitments.
“[It’s] a very special relationship with Philippe that always took really care of me since I was a very young driver, the first part of our history.
“He was really taking care of me and bringing me where I am now.
“And then the second part, when I came back to the team with a lot more experience, it was a different situation where actually I could bring a bit of my experience to the team when I joined them again in 2016.”
“So he’s really close, not only with me but also with other drivers.
“He likes to know how they feel and I think that’s very important. And then he’s really good at getting a good team together, working together.”
This year Alpine made their official debut into the Hypercar category with their two A424 LMDhs, joining a thoroughly competitive field with nine manufacturers and 19 Hypercars for the full season.
Two rounds of the 2024 FIA WEC have been completed so far: the 1812 km Qatar and the 6 Hours of Imola.
The #35 Alpine secured points at the season-opener as both of their new Hypercars ran smooth reliability, despite it being a gruelling near-10-hour race.
Imola saw them hit misfortune when their #36 Alpine was hit at the race-start by the #11 Isotta Fraschini Tipo 6 LMH, although Lapierre highlighted uncompetitive pace regardless of the team’s troubles.
He also praised sportscar newbie and #36 teammate Mick Schumacher for his rapid adaptability and quick laps during the rain-stricken event.
At the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, they are hoping for more at a circuit which is characteristically different to Imola with less aggressive bumps and curbing.
Following that, the Alpine name will take on the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans for the first time at the top in 46 years, apart from in 2021 and 2022 with the grandfathered LMP1.
Additionally, the Signatech name has competed in all 15 editions since 2009, as their only overall podium finish came in 2021 by Andre Negrao, Lapierre and his other #36 teammate Matthieu Vaxiviere.
Lapierre spoke frankly on what Alpine are looking for out of their maiden Hypercar campaign.
“I think in the first season, it’s extremely important that we finish all the races [to gain data]. And then the idea is to improve race-after-race.
“… We need to be humble and I think the target will be more fixed for next year.
“Right now we want to do good races, we want to operate at a good level, and the idea will be to make a step up next year and to come with a clear target at the beginning of next season to say ‘This is what we want to achieve’.
“But this year is more getting up to the rhythm, learning as much as possible and make the team work in this top class that is – right now – extremely competitive.
“I mean, if you see all the teams and manufacturers that are on track, it’s very tough to beat any of them.
“So of course it takes a bit of time because we came a year or two later.
“We have to go through this learning year, we have no choice, but next year it will be different.”
