Lapierre: Toyota's easy WEC triumph not great for the show

Toyota continued its title-winning streak in the WEC this year, with Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa beating the Alpine of Lapierre, Matthieu Vaxiviere and Andre Negrao to the championship by five points in the Bahrain 8 Hours finale.

The two crews arrived at the weekend tied at the top of the championship, having won two races each from the opening five rounds of the season.

But as was the case in September’s Fuji 6 Hours, Toyota received no serious opposition at the Bahrain International Circuit and romped to a dominant 1-2 finish, with Alpine’s solo grandfathered LMP1 car finishing two laps off the lead in third.

Lapierre credited Toyota for doing a better job than Alpine during the 2022 season, but also felt the Japanese manufacturer’s easy run to the title didn’t make a great viewing for fans. 

“It was a tough race for sure,” the Frenchman told Motorsport.com. “The result is quite logical, they deserved this win. It's normal they are champions, it's just the way that [they won] was a bit frustrating.

"In the end there was no battle, they were much faster than on track, they had longer fuel range. They had better top speed so it was easier for them in traffic. 

“It is normal they got this title. It is just the way it happened that I think was not great for us as a racer and probably for the fans. The show was not the best. 

“It's like this. We have to look forward, we have to be happy with what we did this season because we did good. and now the page is turned, we are going to go for a new challenge. 

“Congratulations to them. They had a very strong season. The car is fast and competitive. It was running without any problem. They had a good strategy, so they did good.”

#36 Alpine Elf Team Alpine A480 - Gibson LMP1: André Negrão, Nicolas Lapierre, Matthieu Vaxiviere

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Alpine scored the second of its two victories at Monza in July after beating Toyota in what was the closest fight between the two manufacturers during the season.

The performance of the Alpine was later pegged back at Fuji in form of a 29 kilowatts reduction in power, although a part of it was handed back ahead of the Bahrain finale.

Asked if he felt the Balance of Performance system designed to equate the speed of old-generation LMP1 cars with current Hypercar machinery wasn’t fair to the Alpine in the last two races, Lapierre replied: “It's not me to judge that but we suffered for sure.”

Alpine appeared to lag behind not just Toyota but also Peugeotn in Bahrain, with only reliability problems for the two 9X8 LMH cars promoting the A480 LMP1 car to third at the finish.

While conceding Toyota was out of reach, Lapierre felt Alpine would have likely battled with Peugeot on pace had the latter’s two cars not run into technical issues.

“If you look, we were closer to [Peugeot] because they had more tyre degradation,” he explained. “We could have fought with the Peugeots to be honest. Toyota was another story. 

“Yes, we expected the gap [to Toyota] after qualifying when we were 1.5 second behind. It was almost written that they will have an advantage. [But] of course, we are always hoping for a little bit better.”