Alpine claimed the lead from Ferrari shortly before the halfway mark of the 6 Hours of Spa to put itself in a position to cla꧙im its first victory in the World Endurance Championship since 2022.

🔯The #36 Alpine A424 LMDh stopped a lap earlier than the polesitting #50 Ferrari during the third hour of the race, giving the French squad the benefit of the undercut.

Although the Signatech crew had to complete a driver chan⛄ge on the #36 car, with Jules Gounon taking over the driving duties from Fr𝓰ederic Makowiecki, Alpine managed to significantly close the gap to the leading Ferrari.

That meant that when Miguel Molina returned on track in the Ferrari 499P L꧋MH on cold tyres, Gounon could easily pass him at the bottom 🅷of the Eau Rouge to take the lead for the first time in the race.

The overtake by Gounon followed an impressive performance from teammate Makowie👍cki, who rapidly climbed up from sixth on the grid in a mammoth 2.5-hour stint.

The Frenchman passed both the #83 AF Corse Ferrari of Phil Hanson and the factory #51 Ferrari of James Calado i꧃n the opening hour on his way up to second place.

He had closed in rapidly on the race-leading #50 Ferrari of Molina before diving intꦑo the pits in the middle of the third hour.

Alpinওe lost won a race with its grandfathered A480 LMP1 car in 2022, but has only managed a few podium finishes with its Oreca-based LMDh prototy𓆉pe that debuted in 2024.

Ferrari still has two cars running in provisional podium positions, with Antonio Giovinazzi repassing both Peugeot 9X8 ꦅLMHs to grab third position in the #51 499P.

Robin Frijns holds fourth place in the #20 BMW M Hybrid V8 entered by the factory WRT♕ team, with Jean-Eric Vergne in the #93 Peugeot running ahead of Malthe Jakobsen in the sister #94 entry.

The LMGT3 class is bei🍷ng led by Zacharie Robichon in the #27 Heart of Racing Ast🃏on Martin.