Franck Mailleux has ended the 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship with a fifth place finish in the LMP2 class of this afternoon’s 6 Hours of Shanghai.   

The Frenchman had a mixed race starting from seventh on the grid but together with his Signatech-Nissan team-mates Olivier Lombard and Jordan Tresson, Franck fought hard to claim a top five result.

Having qualified the car on Saturday, Franck was on starting duties for the team today and had a terrific opening lap making up a handful of positions into the first corner. Briefly up to fourth place in class, he ended the first tour of the Shanghai International Circuit in fifth place. Unfortunately, he could not maintain a good feeling with the #23 Oreca 03 but nonetheless persevered before handing over to Lombard while in sixth position in class.

The reliability of the Nissan-powered Oreca 03 car gave the team the opportunity to build up a good rhythm throughout the race and the #23 crew was able to regain a top five placing in LMP2. The result brings to an end a difficult season for Franck and Signatech-Nissan’s #23 car, which had seen results hampered in the first half of the year. A second place LMP2 podium result in Bahrain was the highlight of the season for the team and reinforced the true performance potential of the team in 2012.

Franck Mailleux commented: “It was not exactly the way we wanted to end the season but we fought hard for the fifth place in LMP2 today. I was not at all happy with my first stint. I made a great start to get up into the top five but I was not able to get a consistent rhythm over the first stint and I lost some time as a result. We had a very reliable package today which allowed us to keep pushing and we were able to make up some positions as the race unfolded. I felt more confident in my double stint at the end of the race, which was shown by my best lap time, a 1m55.8s which was among the quickest LMP2 laps of the race. We pushed as hard as we could and I don’t think there was much more in the tank today. It’s been a long season and challenging at times. We have not been able to mount the championship challenge that we had hoped to. The highlight of the year was our second place in Bahrain which definitely showed what we should have been capable of at every race. Even so, it has been a pleasure to be part of the Signatech-Nissan team this season and to represent an engine manufacturer as renowned as Nissan. The team is a great bunch of guys who put a huge amount of effort and dedication into racing. Thanks also to Dunlop for their assistance with tyres. I am also very grateful to my sponsors Sojasun for their support this year.”