Intermittent drizzle during this morning’s practice session, the third free practice of the weekend, meant that Pierre could not prepare himself or the #26 Oreca 03 sufficiently for the afternoon’s qualifying attempt.

The Shanghai track has offered the team and drivers a new challenge this weekend with the circuit’s complex layout proving to be a rigorous technical and driving test. The team has, however, worked hard on its race strategy and will be hoping that reaps rewards in Sunday’s race.

In Friday’s two practice sessions, the #26 crew completed 71 laps of the track in dry conditions working on tyres, car set-up and long runs with all three drivers, Pierre, Nelson Panciatici and Roman Rusinov.

Pierre Ragues said: “We struggled in qualifying today as a result of our lack of running in this morning’s free practice. We had some drizzle which made it impossible to prepare our qualifying set-up so we did not head into this afternoon’s sessions expecting to push for lap times. Instead, our focus has been on the race set-up and tyres. It’s a challenging track with some very unique parts but it’s been enjoyable learning it. We now put all our effort into tomorrow’s race to make up positions from our grid spot. We obviously want to end the season in a positive manner.”