Pierre Ragues enjoyed a competitive double stint in the first part of today's 1000km of Hungaroring and helped the team take a second consecutive class podium with third place in LMP1 today. Unfortunately, having taken his Lola Aston Martin up to second place overall, technical trouble affected the team's progress and prevented them from fighting for the podium outright.

Shortly after handing over the cockpit to team-mate Franck Mailleux midway through the race, the team was hit with technical problems that stopped the team in the pits for 22 laps. It was an unusually problematic event for all LMP1 cars with the LMP2 category machines dominating, but in spite of its technical woes, Signature and Pierre were still able to register a classified 23rd place finish having dropped down to 30th after the team's unscheduled stop.

This weekend's LMS event marked the first visit to the tight and twisty Hungaroring for Signature and its driver line-up, including Pierre, so the free practice sessions were spent focussing on learning the circuit and chasing the optimum car set-up with Aston Martin and tyre choice with Dunlop. After the first day of practice, good strides were made but the drivers were all complaining with traffic given the circuit's tight configuration.

Pierre was given qualifying duties for this race and posted an encouraging fifth fastest time of the session. A mistake on his first run resulted in Pierre crashing out but thanks to some quick team-work he was able to get back out for another run which was second quickest for a time until a late flurry of times saw him bumped back to fifth. Unfortunately, the team was forced to change tyres before the race having sustained damage to its qualifying set. The sporting regulations state that a back-of-the-grid penalty applies to any car which does not start the race on the same set of tyres it qualified with.

Pierre's other team-mate Vanina Ickx took the start from the back of the pack and made good progress the field to take sixth position before handing over to Pierre who enjoyed a successful double stint. At the race's halfway point, Franck Mailleux assumed control but just three laps in, he pitted with a battery problem. Upon inspection of the car, the Signature crew identified a further problem with the alternator pulley which took 22 laps to rectify, and a total of 43 minutes and 57 seconds.

Coming back out in 30th position, just behind the LMP1 Peugeot, which had also pitted with difficulties, Franck had an uphill battle to salvage some pride from the race. Nevertheless, he fought back valiantly, leapfrogging their rivals to finish the race as third best of the P1 runners after a string of competitive laps.

Pierre Ragues said: "We should be pleased to score a class podium as the third highest finishing LMP1 car and some important points, but it could have been so much better. I was sorry with my accident in qualifying yesterday and for the penalty that sent us to the back of the grid. The tyres were flat-spotted after the accident, so it was actually a good effort to set the fifth best time, but it was also a correct and safe decision to change the tyres for the race. Vanina had a great start and she was up to sixth by the time I took over. My own stints were really good also. The car and tyres felt competitive and I was able to make my way up to second. Unfortunately after the halfway point when Franck took over, we had problems with the battery and alternator pulley which took a long time to fix. The mechanics did a fantastic job but 45 minutes is a long time even in endurance racing. There is so little opportunity to overtake at this track, so the fact that we made such progress in the early stages of the race was great. It is tough that we could not continue like that until the end, especially with the problems the other LMP1 cars seemed to experience and the overall competitiveness of our package. The Signature guys should be proud of their efforts in difficult circumstances today and for the way we handled the whole weekend. Aston Martin and Dunlop also worked hard to give us a quick car, as we showed when we were on track. Thanks also to my sponsor Group Auto Union for their support."

More information on Pierre Ragues can be found at the Quadra Sports website www.quadrasports.com and www.pierreragues.com