The tough choice facing a Le Mans 100 percenter

Fernando Alonso will start his second Le Mans 24 Hours this weekend with the sole aim of preserving his 100% record at the race on his farewell sportscar appearance for Toyota.

But there's another driver in the field with a similar record - albeit in class, rather than overall - who in different circumstances could have been one of Alonso's contemporaries this year, as he was a key part of the Toyota set-up before being quietly shuffled out of the picture in 2014.

Nicolas Lapierre has a love-hate relationship with Le Mans. The 36-year-old has won there on each of his three previous starts in LMP2 - in 2015, '16 and '18 - but also experienced gut-wrenching moments at La Sarthe in LMP1, where his best finish of third in '14 is one he would likely prefer to forget.

That year, when the 8MJ hybrid system in Toyota's new TS040 HYBRID was clearly superior to Audi's 2MJ unit, the Japanese marque was strongly favoured to finally end its Le Mans jinx. But its hopes took a blow in hour two when a slick-shod Lapierre crashed in a rainstorm and lost six laps to repairs.

When the sister Toyota retired from the lead during the night with an electronics glitch, Lapierre's earlier incident came under scrutiny and he was benched after another off later in the year at Austin - another occasion when rain arrived suddenly while he was running on slicks. For the record, it also caught out his Toyota team-mate Mike Conway and Porsche's Timo Bernhard.

He suffered an engine failure in the 22nd hour in 2010 when his ORECA-run Peugeot 908 was in podium contention, an alternator failure on Toyota's return to Le Mans in '12 and had a late accident in the '13 race, also in the wet, while he was chasing down third place - although he recovered to still finish fourth on that occasion.

That all meant Lapierre was well accustomed to disappointment at Le Mans when he received a surprise recall to drive a third TS050 HYBRID in 2017 alongside rookies Jose Maria Lopez and Yuji Kunimoto. But following problems for the other two Toyotas, contact with an LMP2 car while Lapierre was at the wheel caused a puncture that ruptured an oil line and the gearbox hydraulics, which gave Porsche an open goal to win - once its remaining entry had passed the LMP2 cars - on its farewell Le Mans appearance in LMP1.

By contrast, Lapierre's three appearances in LMP2 - each in ORECA machinery - have all been comparably straightforward. In 2015, sharing with Richard Bradley and Matt Howson at KCMG, they led the class for all bar nine laps. He moved to join Philippe Sinault's Signatech-Alpine squad for '16 and controlled the final 196 laps, then continued his run of success on his return to LMP2 with Signatech-Alpine last year, finishing a lap ahead of the field after on-the-road winner G-Drive was disqualified for running an illegally modified fuel rig.

So, have Lapierre's successes in LMP2 been the result of a lower standard than at the front of the race, luck, or simply learning how to manage the event after racking up 11 Le Mans starts?

Lapierre readily admits that luck does have its part to play, but it's not quite as simple as that - witness his failure to win in the best car in 2014 and '17. Likewise, while racing in LMP2 may carry less pressure compared to racing for outright honours with a manufacturer, the class doesn't lack much by way of strength-in-depth.

From his experience at Toyota, Lapierre has combined with his undoubted speed an understanding of how to avoid unnecessary risks

Where the main rival for Alonso and Lapierre's former team-mates Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima in LMP1 will be the sister Toyota, in LMP2 there will be 19 other cars powered by the same Gibson V8 engine and capable of similar lap times that can deprive Lapierre of his 100% record.

"Outside of the track it's a bit easier because technically the car is not so complex and there is not so much you can change," he says of LMP2. "You can only do the settings and work on the strategy - tyre pressure, tyre choice and stuff like this. But when you go on track, it's not six or seven cars you are fighting against - it's 19, which are exactly the same as you, so the battle is a lot better."

Although Lapierre's activities have naturally gone further under the radar since his Toyota exit, the man who brought him to the top class in the first place has kept faith.

Lapierre has long-standing links with ORECA boss Hugues de Chaunac, who gave the fresh-faced A1GP ace a Le Mans debut in 2007 in a Saleen SR7, and took Lapierre with him to Toyota when ORECA was signed as a technical partner.

Lapierre was in the line-up when ORECA's privately-run Peugeot 908 scored a surprise triumph over the manufacturers at Sebring in 2011, and had developed ORECA's 01 and 03 chassis. His development expertise was also called upon for ORECA's 05 and 07 chassis, which have won at Le Mans every year since '15.

"Hughes de Chaunac was the first one to tell me about Le Mans," says Lapierre. "At the time in 2007 I was one of the first young guys to come. The people in the big teams were always in their 30s to 40s and I was 23. I was really young with not so much experience, but Hughes knew that Le Mans was changing and you needed fast drivers because the cars were getting stronger, so it's more a sprint than a strategy race.

"He decided to come with young drivers and from that moment in 2007 I never went away from them."

Beyond his innate knowledge of the cars, it's no coincidence Lapierre has been integral to ORECA's successes given the family atmosphere at Sinault's Signatech squad, with which he won the 2003 Macau Grand Prix back when it was known as Signature.

"My number one mechanic from Formula 3 in 2003 is still working on my car, and the chief mechanic and important people on my crew are still there, so when I came back in 2016 I felt straight at home," says Lapierre, who also won that year's LMP2 title.

"I always kept contact with Philippe and when they switched to endurance racing with this Alpine project, I was always really interested in it. And when we had the opportunity to work together again, it was an obvious choice. I am really happy about this long-term relationship, it's a very successful journey together."

From his experience at Toyota, Lapierre (below in 2016) has combined with his undoubted speed an understanding of how to avoid unnecessary risks. The fruits of that are also visible in his results in the World Endurance Championship 2018/19 superseason, which terminates at Le Mans this weekend.

Lapierre, Andre Negrao and Pierre Thiriet lead the standings after finishing on the podium in every race of the elongated season so far. They have avoided some of the niggling problems that have affected chief rivals Jackie Chan DC Racing (Jota Sport), which has won five races across its two cars but trails by four points with its #38 ORECA of Ho-Pin Tung, Gabriel Aubry and Stephane Richelmi.

"This year we had ups and downs in terms of performance and when we were not able to win, we were just focusing on getting on the podium, not trying to win at any cost," he says. "This has been our spirit for a few years now and we are coming to the big one leading the championship, so it's paying off.

"It's a bit sad that it never worked out in LMP1, because that's my driver target - to win Le Mans one day" Nicolas Lapierre

"I also congratulate my mechanics because since I started racing with Signatech-Alpine, I have never retired for a mechanical issue. The car always goes to the end, we never had any problems. We have done many years and many long distance races together and we never had a problem in a race. We've been very strong on this subject and Philippe is putting a lot of effort on it."

Lapierre knows that maintaining his 100% record in LMP2 will also guarantee a second LMP2 WEC title, but because of what he describes as a "tricky situation" that isn't the ultimate priority.

"Of course Le Mans is one of our targets but we also won it already this season so I would take the championship win instead of Le Mans," he says. "Obviously we will have to fight for this win as well, but if we are fighting with another car than the #38, is it worth it to go and risk it for the race instead of securing the championship? It will be a very complicated situation, and as a driver it's not the best feeling.

"I would prefer to fight either for the championship or for Le Mans, but both at the same time? Maybe it's good for the fans, but for me Le Mans is such an important race that I would like to race only for it, [not] have to have this championship on the top of it."

But while his LMP2 record may not be at the front of his mind, Lapierre admits he is keeping a keen eye on discussions over the future of LMP1, having not given up on finally adding the biggest prize in endurance racing to his CV.

"It's a bit sad that it never worked out in LMP1, because that's my driver target - to win Le Mans one day," he says. "If there is another possibility coming, I will jump straight on it."