Franck Mailleux is confident that the Signatech-Nissan team’s work on car set-up will bring rewards during tomorrow’s 6 Hours of Fuji Speedway as his team-mate Olivier Lombard claimed seventh on the LMP2 grid in qualifying this afternoon. 

Although Lombard went wide on his quickest lap in qualifying, losing time, the team has demonstrated its ability to be on podium pace in races this season and will be looking to continue from where it left off in Bahrain.

It has been a busy week for the #23 crew at the 4.563km Fuji Speedway track. An official test day on Wednesday enabled the team, with all other cars on the track, to get an initial feeling for the behaviour of the Nissan-powered Oreca 03 and Dunlop tyres around the Japanese track. Work continued in free practice with Franck playing his usual role as part of the team’s three driver line-up.

The #23 car amassed 84 laps during Friday’s two sessions as they honed the car’s base set-up and carried out tyre evaluation. Another 33 laps in Saturday morning’s session has ensured that the team has plenty of information at its disposal ahead of tomorrow’s race, which will have added importance since it is the home event for team engine partner Nissan.

Franck Mailleux said: “I think we can be quite optimistic heading into tomorrow’s race. We have adopted our usual routine in free practice to allow all three drivers the chance to familiarise ourselves with the circuit, which is new to us, as well as to make sure the base set-up of the #23 Signatech-Nissan Oreca 03 is strong. We have completed a lot of laps, which has been important because technically it is quite a challenging track with the long straight that puts a premium on outright power and speed, and the complex series of corners, which puts a premium on high downforce levels. We showed what we are capable of in Bahrain so I would like to think we can repeat that here in Fuji tomorrow as we again set the podium as our race target. It’s been an enjoyable but busy week for us in Japan, so I hope that hard work is rewarded tomorrow.”