You will be competing in the 6 Hours of Fuji. How has your season been so far in the World Endurance Championship?

"It has not been an easy season because all the teams are quite strong. We have a new car (May of 2015 for his first race in Europe, Ed.) and we just need to operate and update it all the time. We are limited on that so we cannot improve a lot during the season. We are still slow compared to other teams, but have done good work, we don't have any problems with pit stop or strategy, the team is growing up and we are a good team. But just we are struggling with the speed."

How was the 24 Hours of Le Mans for you?

"You know at Le Mans, I knew we would have a good chance to fight for the podium or to win, you never know what can happen. Actually also our speed was not too bad and I told the team we need to focus on our job and not make any mistakes. This is what we did and for 24 hours the drivers and team did a fantastic job without any mistakes (third in the LM P2 class, seventh overall with his teammates Kirill Ladygin and Victor Shaytar, Ed.) but it was not easy for me, my team asked me to drive double stints."

It was your second time at Le Mans (after a first appearance in 2007 at the wheel of Noël del Bello Racing's Courage LC 75 with Romain Iannetta and Liz Halliday). What does this race mean to you? What do you think of Le Mans?

"It's not easy. For two weeks, you have testing, preparation, and of course if something happens, you are a team who is disappointed. In general I think it's a good race, it's mental, physical, the team must be focused for 24 hours to show a good result and this is what we did."

You were at Spa for the fifth ELMS round a few weeks ago. You do not usually participate in this championship. Why did you choose to?

"My team SMP Racing asked me to come and see how and where we can improve the car and speed in general, so this is why I'm here. Maybe I will also do Estoril for the last race. We need to understand how we can improve the car. Like yesterday, I said good job but we still have some engine problems so we cannot show the full potential of the car. I think we can maybe be in the top 3."

Endurance is quite different from what you have experienced before (like Formula 1). What do you think of this discipline?

"It's a little bit different. You need to be thinking about how to overtake people, how to save the tyres for the other drivers, so it's a little bit different style but the idea is the same so you can push, you can attack, you can work on that."

What will be your 2017 program?

"We are going to announce that [soon]."