Ferdinand Habsburg has revealed that his ability to save fuel over the course of the opening stint of the Qatar 1812Km led to the strategy call that allowed the #35 car he shared with Charles Milesi and Paul-Loup Chatin to complete the race on one fewer pitstops than its rivals for the final point-paying places.
This gave the car eighth position, making it the highest-placed entry from one of the manufacturers new to the WEC this season.
“It was just that I saved a s*** load of fuel over the first stint and we decided to carry on like that,” Habsburg told Autosport.
“It wasn’t the original plan, but it felt like the right thing to do and it paid off.
“We knew we didn’t have the pace of the guys at the front, so we just tried to save a lap every stint.”
The #35 Alpine completed either 33 or 34 laps on its energy allocation laid down in the Hypercar Balance of Performance across eight of the car’s 10 stints.
To make the strategy work Milesi then had to go one lap further again though his final stint, the Frenchman completing 35 laps on the run to the chequered flag.
That meant the Alpine completed the race on nine pitstops compared with the 10 of the cars behind it, including the sister #36 Alpine shared by Mick Schumacher, Nicolas Lapierre and Matthieu Vaxiviere that finished 12th.
Source: Autosport