Mick Schumacher has hailed Alpine for improving a car that he felt was at its “worst” this year in order to clinch a maiden podium in the World Endurance Championship at Fuji.
During an impressive final stint, Schumacher snatched third place in the #36 Alpine A424 LMDh he shares with Nicolas Lapierre and Matthieu Vaxiviere, delivering the French manufacturer its best-ever finish since its return to the Hypercar category at the start of the year.
The result followed a tough weekend for the #36 crew, which struggled in comparison to the sister #35 car in practice and could qualify only 15th out of 18 entrants in the top class.
Alpine hadn’t got to the bottom of the #36 car’s struggles in the run-up to the race, but Schumacher, Lapierre and Vaxiviere were able to come through the field to take an unlikely third place, finishing 42s down on the winning #6 Porsche.
After taking the chequered flag, Schumacher said he was impressed by how Alpine was able to turn around its performance in such a short span of time, but stressed that the team still had work to do ahead of the Bahrain season finale in November.
"It was tough this time,” he said. “I think we started off actually from, in my opinion, the worst car we've ever had this year.
“We were really fighting [the car] a lot and were not confident at all from our side. [The] #35 seem to be a bit better on that.
“In the #36, for some reason, we struggled a bit more. And could see it in the pace nonetheless compared to the #35.
“So there's a lot of homework we still have to do. We should have to do some digging on our side if there's something that is different.
“But on the other hand we can be really happy with our result. The #35 was also, at a time, in for the win. For it being our first year in the championship, it's insane."
The result marked Schumacher’s first visit to the podium since his title-winning campaign in Formula 2 in 2020, having managed a best finish of sixth during his two-year stint in Formula 1.
The German driver showed impressive pace early in the race to propel the #36 Alpine inside the top 10 by the beginning of the second hour.
He returned behind the wheel of the car after a late safety car appearance, grabbing third place from the #12 Jota Porsche 963 of Norman Nato with less than 10 minutes remaining in the race.
The 25-year-old said he'd “had a lot of fun” on track after a very long time, but felt he'd had to “really fight” in order to secure the podium finish.
“It was good, we really, really fought for this one,” he said. “The team has made great calls in strategy all around the race and we really showed potential.
"We had some very close battles. I'm getting more confidence in how to fight in the WEC. I definitely wasn't expecting it to be this hard, but these cars are pretty robust.
“It seems a bit like the good old days of karting. I had a lot of fun out there. It's been a while that I was on the podium."
Contrasting fortunes
The #35 Alpine crewed by Charles Milesi, Ferdinand Habsburg and Jules Gounon was on course for third before a drive-through penalty for Milesi put the #36 car out of the running for a podium finish.
Milesi was sanctioned for a collision with the #81 TF Sport Corvette Z06 GT3.R late in the race, but was able to recover to seventh to secure a double points finish for Alpine.
The Frenchman took responsibility for the incident, but felt the punishment didn’t fit the crime.
“The contact with the Corvette, I couldn't do anything: he was going left-right, left-right and I didn't know where he was going, so I tried to go outside and he moved at the last-minute,” he said.
“It was my fault, I hit him, but we need to accept the penalty for sure. It's a bit harsh for what happened but anyway we have to deal with it. It's my fault, I did a mistake and it cost us the podium.”
