Loïc Duval (#94 Peugeot 9X8): "As long as we don't win, we won't be satisfied"

After the nightmare of Sebring, how do you judge this Portuguese weekend?

It was of course much better than Sebring. We expected it, but it was confirmed. In terms of performance we were pretty good. Nico (Müller) did a great stint at the beginning. It was clean, with a good level of performance. 'Gus' took over and was in the same rhythm. And from the middle of his stint, we started to have problems with a sensor (torque meter which forced the team to opt for a default mode) which meant that we finished the race with less power, with all that this implies in terms of additional difficulties.

Nevertheless, satisfaction dominates this evening, doesn't it?

On an operational level, on our car, we did everything right today (Sunday). Afterwards, not everything was perfect. We were able to see that Toyota and Ferrari are a step above us in terms of performance, but we were also able to see that we could fight with Cadillac and Porsche. I think that in pure performance, without this problem, we would have been playing for fourth place, and that makes us happy.

How did you manage the end of the race, with this sensor problem?

Honestly, the last two and a half hours we were in survival mode. The n°93 also had a little problem (change of power steering) before the start, but they did a very good race. We opted for two slightly different strategies, which will allow us to learn several things. And it was important for the whole team to have both cars at the end, one of them in fifth place.

Is this a breath of fresh air?

It's good for the team, because the guys have been working like crazy and their nights have been short recently. It feels good to have a little return on investment. After the poor performance at Sebring, it's nice to be able to lift our heads like that. But we have to continue. The gap between us and Toyota is going to be hard to close but that's our target. We are going to work for it. Between now and Le Mans, we will also work on reliability. There is still the 6 Hours of Spa and then a test session (at Magny-Cours) and then it will be time to attack the big race of the season.

Have you had any problems with traffic?

Before we had this problem with the sensor, if we compare the stint averages, we can see that we don't lose more time than our rivals. But we have seen this before, especially in Monza for our first race, as well as in Fuji and Bahrain. That's not where we concede the most time... Even if when you are less competitive, it is inevitably harder to make the difference. When you are not the fastest, the traffic is a bit more complicated to manage.

Last year, top speed was one of your weak points. What about now?

At Sebring, although it's a very special track, we didn't seem to be too bad. And here we could see that it seems that we have reached a good level.

This is encouraging...

There are a lot of things that are very positive, but as long as we don't win, we won't be satisfied. At the moment we are not good enough. But Toyota has ten years of experience to draw on. When they arrived (in 2012), they looked at us (Audi) in the same way. We have to improve in all areas: the powertrain, the aerodynamics, the operations... When you see the gap between us and them, the difference is not made on one single parameter. Time and understanding of the car will allow us to get closer.