4-time Le Mans 24 Hours class winner Nicolas Lapierre has retired from the cockpit with quick impact to focus on working his Cool Racing crew.
The announcement from the Frenchman, 40, on Wednesday implies that final month’s Fuji spherical of the World Endurance Championship, through which he completed third with Alpine, was his ultimate race.
“It’s time for me to hold up my helmet and finish this chapter of my life,” mentioned Lapierre in a brief video publish on Instagram. “It was nice to complete this journey on the rostrum and spray the Champagne as soon as extra. It was an honour for me to stay for my ardour, with so a few years doing what I like.”
Lapierre mentioned that it was now “time for a brand new chapter of my life on the opposite aspect of the pitwall”. He added: “I find it irresistible as a lot as I cherished racing, so I gained’t be far-off.”
Nicolas Lapierre, Alpine A424
Picture by: Alpine
Lapierre shall be specializing in the CLX Motorsport operation he based with Alexandre Coigny in 2020. The crew runs below the Cool Racing banner and relies in Annecy in France, simply throughout the border from Geneva. It has competed in LMP2 and LMP3 within the European Le Mans Sequence, in addition to on the Le Mans 24 Hours in P2.
Lapierre took the chance in his video assertion to thank a number of gamers from a profession through which he was a race winner in GP2 and A1 Grand Prix and within the WEC with each Toyota and Alpine.
Amongst them had been Philippe Sinault, who had a job in a few of his greatest successes in each single-seaters and sportscars.
Sinault runs the Signatech crew that has masterminded Alpine’s endurance racing campaigns since 2013 and its forerunner, Signature, for which Lapierre gained the Macau Formulation 3 Grand Prix in 2003.
He additionally singled out Jean-Paul Driot, the late founder and boss of the DAMS crew.
“I’m considering additionally of Jean-Paul Driot; he left too early,” mentioned Lapierre. “With him and his crew I may get my first GP2 win in 2007 – he positively modified my profession.”
Nicolas Lapierre, DAMS, crosses the end line to take victory
Additionally talked about had been ORECA boss Hugues de Chaunac, who gave Lapierre his first likelihood in sportscar racing in ’07 and with whom he gained the 2011 Sebring 12 Hours aboard a semi-works Peugeot 908 HDi LMP1.
Lapierre’s contract with ORECA smoothed his manner into Toyota’s LMP1 line-up on the rebirth of the WEC in 2012 as a result of the French organisation was a part of the Japanese producer’s race set-up till the top of 2020.
He would go on to win six WEC races with Toyota earlier than being controversially sacked mid-season in 2014 after crashing at each Le Mans and the Austin spherical, regardless that he was on slick tyres in heavy rain each occasions.
Lapierre paid tribute to former ORECA technical director David Floury, who now fulfils the identical function at Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe, for his encouragement at the moment.
“He was an important individual in my profession and in addition my life,” he mentioned. “I used to be in all probability on the lowest level of my racing profession: I used to be very near stopping racing and he was the one who introduced me again.”
Lapierre’s announcement comes at a time when Cool is thought to be one of many candidates to associate with Hyundai Motorsport because it gears up for its entry into the prototype ranks with a brand new LMDh below the South Korean producer’s premium Genesis model.
It’s anticipated that Lapierre’s place within the #36 Alpine A424 LMDh alongside Mick Schumacher and Matthieu Vaxiviere for the 2024 WEC finale in Bahrain shall be taken by Jules Gounon.
Gounon is Alpine’s official reserve driver and was introduced into the line-up for Fuji as a part of a plan agreed earlier than the beginning of the season to extend his expertise within the Hypercar division.
He changed Paul-Loup Chatin and the identical settlement known as for him to step in for Bahrain instead of Charles Milesi, who has been Alpine’s standout performer throughout its transfer in direction of the entrance of the Hypercar discipline since Le Mans.
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