Franck Mailleux left Le Mans in a disappointed mood last Sunday as the Signatech-Nissan #23 Oreca 03 car finished the gruelling 24 hours race down in ninth place in LMP2 after a series of misfortunes affected the team during the week.

For Franck, as reigning LMP2 champions from last year’s ILMC, and podium finishers at Le Mans twelve months ago, the result was even more frustrating but the Frenchman is determined to turn things round when the World Endurance Championship resumes at the end of August.

Q+A with Franck Mailleux

Franck, obviously a disappointing result but how to you look back on the Le Mans weekend?
“Firstly, I have to say that to finish the Le Mans 24 Hours is a very positive accomplishment in any situation but I know we were capable of a podium finish with the competitiveness of our team and car. Le Mans is such a special event that you always want to do well. Coming into this year’s event as reigning LMP2 champions and having finished on the podium last year, I was confident we could get back onto the podium. Unfortunately, we had a number of problems that affected our progress.” 

What were the main problems?
“We never really recovered from the time we lost on the opening day of practice on Wednesday when we had some recurring technical issues on the car that hampered our running.  We opted to use the qualifying sessions on Thursday to focus on the race set-up of the car and although we completed a qualifying lap it was not representative and left us down the order a bit. I had a cracking start to the race and got up into the top 20 overall. We continued making up ground during the night but we lost 45 minutes after an off-track excursion for Olivier (Lombard) in the night. I was frustrated at a mistake I made at the start of my penultimate run in the morning which lost us two minutes more. I pushed hard to set some competitive lap times but it is always tough to try and regain such a significant amount of lost time. It was a frustrating race overall because we were not able to get a result that reflected our performance.”

Can you draw any positives from the event?
“There are always positives to be found from difficult events and I have to commend the team for a fantastic job, making sure that the car was competitive and ensuring we minimised time lost in the garage. Thanks must also go to Nissan and my own sponsors Sojasun for their support, as well as Jordan and Olivier who I enjoyed working alongside. The WEC season still has lots of races but we have two months before Silverstone so we can take stock and come back fighting. We know we have the pace to get podium results so this, as a team, will be our focus.”