Jules Gounon at the wheel of theAlpine #35 at the 6 Hours of Fuji

Surprise on the home side Alpine for the 6 Hours of Fuji. The French manufacturer announced this Friday morning the presence of Jules Gounon in its A424 n°35 for the Japanese event where he will exceptionally replace Paul-Loup Chatin alongside Charles Milesi and Ferdinand Habsburg. Chatin will make his return for the season finale, the 8 Hours of Bahrain, on November 2.

A rotation agreed before the start of the season is explained by the brand with the arrowed A in order to allow the Ardéchois to continue his apprenticeship in the Hypercar after Imola and Spa-Francorchamps where he had replaced Habsburg, injured. This desire to familiarize Gounon, until now a reserve, with the tricolor LMDh in racing could be followed by a start in racing in 2025.

In L'Alpine No. 36, Matthieu Vaxiviere, Mick Schumacher et Nicolas lapierre will still be associated for this penultimate meeting of the year, which follows an excellent result in Austin (5th place for n°35).

« Fuji is one of the most iconic events on the calendar and in motorsport with Mount Fuji as a backdrop, says Philippe Sinault, Team Principal ofAlpine Endurance team. Every year, this race allows us to see how much the community Alpine is important in Japan and how lucky we are to be able to count on their support. With very little time between Austin and Fuji, the tour de force is mainly on the logistical level. The teams are subject to an intense pace and ours will arrive on Monday to start the revision of the cars. The objective is to continue the momentum of Austin, where we showed progress on our level of performance even if we still have a lot to learn.

"We believe we have made progress in understanding the settings and the tires, and hope to start on a good basis from Free Practice 1, He added. Fuji has several particularities that will need to be tamed, starting with its duality with this very long straight, coupled with a very winding final sector. The other subject will be the weather since we should not escape a wet track at some point during the weekend. We will be mobilized and ready to face all the scenarios during this round where we will welcome Jules again. His participation will bring him additional experience and he will be able to see the progress made since his last race under our colors at Spa. »

Free Practice 1 of the 6 Hours of Fuji will be available from 4:00 a.m. on Friday, September 13.

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