RANDOM MISHAP WITH FIRE EXTINGUISHER ENDS SILVERSTONE HOPES

“So Silverstone. My home round of the ELMS and unfortunately it just wasn’t meant to be for us!

From the outset we struggled to find an optimum set-up. We thought there was going to be more tyre degradation so we opted for a medium compound which we then used for qualifying. But the degradation wasn’t as bad as we’d anticipated and we just didn’t have enough grip for the Ligier to work properly. The balance wasn’t optimal at all, it was probably one of the worst balances I’ve felt this year so it was a very tough start to the race. That said, as a driver, I have to learn from races like this one. The Ligiers tend to be a bit more sensitive than the Orecas at Silverstone, which makes it tough when you’re also trying to make a tyre work that is struggling, whether that’s temperature, grip or the medium compound just not working on the track surface.

Then, as you probably already know, pretty early on we had the problem with the car’s onboard fire extinguisher. We believe a piece of rubber kicked up off the track and hit the external ‘port’ where the marshalls can pull out the extinguisher to put out a fire on the car. This caused the extinguisher to actually go off and when that happens the ignition automatically cuts out as a precaution. The last thing you want with a fire in the car is for fuel to still be pumping into the engine!

Once the ignition is off then you can’t restart the car. It turns off the master switch and all the electronics, so that was the end of our race!

At least having a random mishap like this happened in a race where we didn’t really stand a chance to be competitive. As the set up wasn’t really there for us we couldn’t compete or really get the chance to race properly. I don’t think we’d have been able to fight at all. It would have been really tough for us to score some good points or even get anywhere close to some good lap times like we saw the Orecas and the other Ligiers on Michelins doing.

So all in all it was a tough weekend, but we’ll think about it and hopefully adapt the set up and take a better view on tyres for the next round at Spa, which is probably my favourite track on the calendar, just like many other drivers. I’m looking forward to it. It’s a fresh start and from a bad weekend you can tend to bounce back into a really good weekend - hopefully!

It would be nice to get on the podium at Spa and show the pace we do have when we get the car balanced and a good feeling from it. If Filipe and I are comfortable I think we can be very competitive, so definitely looking forward to it.”