Alpine stand-out Victor Martins leaves Fuji with confidence: "Everything on the table to win a race"

Victor Martins was among the standout drivers at the 6 Hours of Fuji. He and Jules Gounon started from pole in the #36 Alpine Endurance Team Alpine A424 and extended Alpine’s recent strong form in the FIA World Endurance Championship with a second consecutive podium. The French rookie fought Ryō Hirakawa in the #8 Toyota through the closing laps, but a late safety car and a strategy misjudgement left him short of a maiden WEC victory.

In the sister #35 Alpine, Ferdinand Habsburg ran in a podium position for most of the race before dropping to fourth. Both drivers spoke to GT REPORT after the race.

Victor Martins: “I’m a rookie, I’m discovering a lot”

Though the team missed out on the win, Martins felt it was still a strong showing for the car, which he said felt “on rails”.

“We were prepared in any conditions today, in the wet, in the dry, then we missed [the strategy] for a bit. But sometimes racing is like this,” Martins told GT REPORT.

Despite the defeat, the Frenchman believes the race taught him a lot for the rounds ahead.

“I’m a rookie, I’m discovering a lot, I am getting a lot of experience with this kind of safety car, why you need to go full push, or sometimes you need to do double stints. I did 70 laps on the softs today and it’s not something I’ve experienced in all of my career, so I am still in the learning process on managing the tyres, to be consistent all race, to fight with the GTs.”

He added that restarts were “very tough when the GT3 cars were in ‘full fight’ mode.”

It was his first time racing in Japan, and Martins said he would have stayed longer if he could, because “I really like the culture and the track was amazing to drive on.”

With the next two rounds in Europe, his confidence is high: “Barcelona and Monza I know, so I am 100% confident that I will be delivering a good pace there. The car is working well, we have everything on the table to win a race before the end of the season.”

Looking further ahead, Martins hopes to return in a Hypercar, but said he doesn’t know the plans as of today.

Ferdinand Habsburg: “Starting from the front row was amazing”

Habsburg, who shares the #35 with Charles Milesi, endured a similarly disappointing finish. He ran in a podium position for most of the race but ended up just short in fourth place. Even so, he told GT REPORT that he had nothing to complain about and that it was an awesome weekend to be racing at the front.

“The highlight for me was to start on the front row, to do that for the first time in a world championship was amazing. I am very happy with how the team went through with the whole weekend and just at the last moment, we made a slight mistake but it’s like that sometimes. The team made a great car and we were really fast.”

Habsburg said he was able to adapt to the last-minute line-up change: “I just got to get in and go as fast as possible.

“My teammates all did an amazing job, we played together when we were on opposite strategies. António [Félix da Costa] is a great friend of mine and it was sad that he wasn’t here, but I just had to do as many fast laps as possible.”

Looking at the season as a whole, Habsburg said Alpine will work hard to extend its podium streak at Barcelona and Monza, although he warned that its rivals are not “sleeping”. The team can also be proud of what it has achieved so far: “It’s a big step when everyone in the team is disappointed with a P2.”