Pierre Ragues added another class podium to his career portfolio in last weekend's Hungaroring 1000kms, cementing his third place in the drivers' standings in the process. Pierre helped overturn a starting grid to deficit to run as high as second in the race overall and despite a difficult second half of the race, the Signature Lola Aston Martin still finished third of the LMP1 machines.

Pierre, run us through Hungary from your perspective?
"It was my first time driving at Hungaroring so the first practice sessions were used to learn the track and to start initial car set-up. I was on qualifying duties for this race but unfortunately I made a mistake on my first quick lap and had an off. The car wasn't damaged but for safety we had to change the front end and thanks to some efficient work from the team I was able to get back out for another run. It was very frustrating because the tyres were flat-spotted after my run-off which made my job a bit harder. I was still able to get the fifth fastest time which was quite good in the circumstances but the team made the correct and safe decision to change the tyres before the race, which of course sent us to the back of the grid."

How hard was it to make up ground from the back of the grid?
"Vanina started the race on fresh tyres and she did a great job to make her way through the field in the early laps. By the time I took over, about 34 laps into the race, we were in sixth position. I had a good double stint and I was very competitive. The car and the tyres performed well and I got up to second place just before handing over the Franck. It is a very difficult track to overtake on and it was also very hot which made it quite demanding but I was pleased with my pace and think we showed what we might have achieved without the technical problems in the second half of the race."

Tell us what happened...
"It was a combination of problems really. Franck had been out for only a couple of laps when he came back into the garage with a suspected battery problem. When the mechanics looked closer at the car they realised that there was an alternator issue, which actually turned out to be a problem with one of the pulleys. Fixing that requires taking the entire rear end of the car off so we were stationary for 45 minutes, effectively undoing all of the progress that we had made in the first half of the race. It was a big shame because of the competitiveness of our package but we were still able to register a second consecutive LMP1 podium finish which was a good achievement, especially with the problems that we faced. We can now head to Silverstone, the final race of the Le Mans Series championship, knowing that we can fight for the outright podium and that is what we have to aim for."