French endurance racer Franck Mailleux found few positives to take away from this weekend’s 6 Hours of Fuji Speedway after a difficult race for the #23 Signatech-Nissan team. 

A combination of a mysterious lack of pace and unscheduled trips to the pits for mechanical issues left the team down the timesheets and with some post-race analysis required before the season finale in China in two weeks from now.

Having qualified the #23 car on Saturday, Olivier Lombard started the 6 Hours of Fuji for the team and handed over to Franck Mailleux after a single stint. Almost immediately, Franck found that the behaviour of the car was not quite right and he struggled with the balance of the car during his double stint but he persevered and extracted as much performance from the car as he could despite the ill-feeling from within the cockpit.

During his scheduled refuel stop, however, there was a problem with the engine starter motor which required the team to carry out substantial work, which lost over seven minutes of time in the pits. Franck went back out to conclude his double stint and showed determination in recovering the lost time. He handed over to Jordan Tresson tenth in class, as the team focussed on getting back into a rhythm. Tresson completed his stints before handing over to Lombard with over two hours remaining in the race.

Unfortunately, the team suffered more misfortune as a problem with the headlights required them to change the front end of the car. It was just another of many issues that blighted the Fuji 6 Hours for the team which they will now look to learn from as they prepare to finish the season on a high in Shanghai in two weeks’ time.

Franck Mailleux commented: “There’s not a lot to say about that race really. It was a huge disappointment from start to finish. We had a strange lack of pace today which was difficult to understand but we will definitely be looking into the data to find out what went wrong today. During my first stint, the car didn’t feel right and I wasn’t happy with the balance. We might have taken a wrong direction with the set-up but we will have to investigate this more closely. We also had some technical issues to contend with, which made matters worse. First, we had an engine starter motor problem which lost us seven minutes of time, then later in the race with the headlights. The team worked hard today and I have to commend their efforts in difficult circumstances. Thanks to everyone in the team, to Nissan and to Sojasun.  We just didn’t have the package to compete today and we will work together as a team to fight back in Shanghai.”