Franck Mailleux and the Signature Plus team were forced to settle for a disappointing 13th position in today’s 1000km of Spa-Francorchamps after an excellent qualifying performance on Saturday and an encouragingly competitive pace in the first half of this afternoon’s race in Belgium. Franck completed a very competitive double stint in the race and the team was on course for a top six in just their second full race weekend as official LMP1 partners for Aston Martin Racing but mechanical trouble around two-thirds of the way through the race saw them drop down the field significantly.
It was a rough end to a race weekend that had started off in challenging conditions. Following a cold and wet opening day in Belgium on Friday, the Signature team worked hard to improve the handling of the car after difficult free practice sessions saw them languish in respective 11th and 14th positions. A set-up breakthrough from Saturday morning practice to the afternoon qualifying session enabled Franck to qualify with confidence, setting the eighth fastest time behind the four works Peugeots and three works Audi cars, and holding the honour of being the top petrol-powered car. It was Pierre’s turn to take the race start with a successful double stint before handing over the cockpit to Franck. Unfortunately, a problem with the gearbox required Franck to pit in just a handful of laps before the end of his own excellent double stint to allow the team to replace the gear selector. Some sterling work by the team allowed third driver, Vanina Ickx, to get back out on track just 11 minutes later. The car’s pace was once again strong but Vanina unfortunately miscalculated an overtaking manoeuvre which resulted in a trip to the gravel trap and cost further time to get the car back on track.
Even after returning to the race, matters became more difficult with a late rain shower prompting the team to make the safe call for intermediate tyres. The rain, however, stopped quickly and the track dried up leaving Vanina no choice but to nurse the car home on worn tyres in 13th spot. Franck Mailleux said: “Unfortunately we did not get the result in today’s race to do justice either to the car’s performance or the team’s combined efforts. We started the weekend way off the pace and when I drove in second practice, I struggled a lot with oversteer. The car just didn’t feel very connected, but the team found some big improvements for Saturday and we had a brilliant qualifying. Eighth on the grid at this race – which has more elite teams than usual – is a good result and we were the top petrol car which really showed our potential. The race didn’t really go our way, though.
When it came to my double stint, I started to have some problems with the gear selection and I couldn’t downshift from fifth, so I had to come in early for the team to fix the problem, which they did really professionally. But by then we were too far down to make a real impact. It’s a shame because the car had the pace for a top six finish and our overall package was strong. Dunlop did a fantastic job and we had some nice consistency from the tyres once we had found the right set-up. As a team, I feel we deserved more today, but thanks to them, as always for their hard work, and to my personal sponsors Sojasun as well. Le Mans is next up and we all know how special it would be to get a good result there, and that’s my target!”
Source : Franck Mailleux