Spa has been very encouraging for Le Mans

We haven’t scored at Spa, but we come back from Belgium in a very optimistic mood, as the race has proved how competitive we are, and also that we’ll have a card to play at Le Mans.

During qualifying, we didn’t change Silverstone’s procedure: my team-mates qualified the car and I took the start. We were qualified 5th, very close to the 3rd position.

At the start, I was passed by another car during the first lap, and I was 6th. Then I started to attack. I passed two Audis and my team-mate. One of the Porsche has retired. Therefore just one Porsche was approx.. 10 seconds ahead of me when we pitted. We decided to keep the same tyres for another stint, thus I took the lead.

The Porsche then tried to pass me thanks to its new tyres, but I stayed in front and eventually the Porsche suffered a puncture. Then I was easily leading. Anthony Davidson then increased our lead, and when Kazuki Nakajima took the wheel, our competitors were more than one lap down!

Kazuki raced 10 laps before our engine died, with less than two hours to go. That’s a real shame, of course, but this is motor racing, one must accept such technical failures.

But as I was saying, I am back from Spa with positive feelings. Our performances are really very good, we should be able to race for a win at the Le Mans 24 Hours, our next WEC round.