24h Le Mans
24 HOURS CENTENARY – PEOPLE AND MACHINES ⎮ While overall victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans naturally commands respect, a class win involves the same level of hard work, commitment and performance, and is therefore deserving of its own accolade. After a spell as a Toyota works driver, Nicolas Lapierre has become a figurehead of the LMP2 field with four class wins, including three with Alpine.
Nicolas Lapierre was born on 2 April 1984 in Thonon-les-Bains in the French Alps. His early career saw him climb the single-seater ranks, winning the 2003 Macau Grand Prix in the Formula Three Euroseries at just 19, before helping the French national team to the title in the inaugural season of the short-lived A1 Grand Prix series in 2005-06.
He started in endurance in 2007 and made his Le Mans début the same year in the GT1 class (16th overall). Lapierre switched to prototypes in 2009, finishing fifth at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Sharing a Peugeot 908 HDi FAP with Loïc Duval and Olivier Panis for Team Oreca-Matmut, he chalked up a prestigious win at the 2011 12 Hours of Sebring and another fifth place at the 24 Hours of Le Mans a few months later.
Toyota hired Lapierre for its return to the endurance fold in 2012 and, partnering Alex Wurz and Kazuki Nakajima, achieved the Japanese firm’s first three wins (São Paulo, Fuji and Shanghai). After two more wins in 2014 (Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps), his spell with Toyota ended on the third step of the Le Mans podium.
The following season, Lapierre joined the ranks of KCMG with whom he triumphed in the LMP2 class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans – the maiden win for an Oreca chassis. After a year finding its feet in the FIA World Endurance Championship, the Signatech Alpine team swooped to sign up Lapierre for 2016. This marked the beginning of a long, fruitful partnership between the driver and the marque.
For his first season with Signatech Alpine, Lapierre teamed up with Gustavo Menezes (USA) and Stéphane Richelmi (Monaco), both newcomers to endurance. He began by displaying his tremendous skill in an outrageous overtaking manoeuvre that brought an LMP2 win at Spa-Francorchamps and followed it up with a second successive Le Mans victory. “Discovering the 24 Hours with Nicolas – a guy who has nothing more to prove – taught us an enormous amount and helped to bring us quickly up to speed as a team,” said Richelmi. LMP2 team and driver trophies concluded a successful first season for the trio.
The man from the Alps continued the Alpine adventure until 2022, barring a brief return to LMP1 with Toyota for the 2017 24 Hours of Le Mans (DNF). The 2018-19 FIA WEC Super Season brought Lapierre another LMP2 championship title and two more class wins at the showcase event in France, albeit with two new teammates in the shape of Brazilian André Negrão and Frenchman Pierre Thiriet. “Nicolas is someone I particularly appreciate,” says Thiriet. “He brings a cool head and never loses it. He has a way of stepping back and analysing things calmly because he knows what it takes to set a car up properly and bring it quickly up to speed.”
Lapierre joined Cool Racing in 2019, clinching a win at Silverstone in the opening round of the 2019-20 WEC season, before combining his role as a driver with that of joint team manager with Alexandre Coigny. In 2021, he led Cool Racing’s European Le Mans Series (ELMS) programme and accompanied Alpine on its venture into the new Hypercar class, with third place on the 2021 Le Mans podium and victory in Sebring and Monza in 2022.
Since his switch to LMP2 in 2015, Lapierre has chalked up no fewer than 11 class wins (nine in the WEC, including four at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and two in ELMS) and two LMP2 world championship titles, plus seven LMP1 and Hypercar victories with Toyota and Alpine. With such a track record, he is one of the most successful prototype racing drivers of the last decade or more. Lapierre’s current projects include an ELMS campaign with Cool Racing – who have recently added 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans winner José María López to their roster – while working on the development of Alpine's future Hypercar that the French firm hopes to race in 2024.
PHOTOS: LE MANS (SARTHE, FRANCE), CIRCUIT DES 24 HEURES, 2016–2022 24 HOURS OF LE MANS – FROM TOP TO BOTTOM (© ACO ARCHIVES): Nicolas Lapierre, at the wheel of the Alpine A470, takes the chequered flag in 2019 for his fourth LMP2 win; the two Alpine line-ups at the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans, with (from left to right) the LMP2 winners Lapierre, Gustavo Menezes and Stéphane Richelmi; Lapierre (with the helmet) and teammates André Negrão and Pierre Thiriet at the finish of the 2019 24 Hours; Lapierre (centre) from LMP2 to Hypercar, with teammates Matthieu Vaxivière (left) and Negrão at the 2022 24 Hours Drivers Parade.
