Friday 23 July 2010

Franck Mailleux and the Signature Plus team registered their maiden podium finish in the Le Mans Series at last weekend’s 1000kms of Algarve with a fine drive to third place. The result came after Franck qualified second on the grid and set the second quickest lap of the race, the best of the Petrol-powered cars. Here, Franck looks back on a successful weekend.

Franck, a positive weekend in Portugal for you and the team...
“Absolutely. It was a great reward for everyone in the team to celebrate our first podium in the Le Mans Series at Portimao. It was not exactly a trouble-free weekend with a variety of issues over the two days of track activity, but in the end the overall competitiveness of our package allowed us to fight through these problems and come out with a good result.”

What exactly were the problems you encountered?
“We were not able to get a lot of running in the first Friday practice session because of an electronics problem but thankfully the guys were quick to find a cure, which allowed all three drivers to get some track time in the second session. In the race, we had a driver through penalty on Pierre’s triple stint, as well as an extra long pit stop to replace a defective steering wheel. We also lost radio communication for a large part of the race which certainly didn’t make life easy. So to get a podium result in spite of these dramas was even more impressive!”

How would you rate your personal contribution to the team?
“I was pleased with my own performance, even if it must be remembered that endurance racing is always about the team effort. I had a good qualifying session and was able to set the third quickest time even with traffic on my lap. I would have been reasonably satisfied with third but the car ahead of us was penalised so we were promoted to second on the grid and our first ever front row which was even better. In the race, I had a good stint taking over from Pierre and I was also able to finish the race. I had a small spin in my final stint because the track was very dirty and I feel sorry for that but these things can happen and it didn’t affect our result. Overall, the car felt good and setting the second fastest race lap just four-tenths from the diesel-powered winner was quite special.”