Collision leaves de Ferran frustrated

The long stop for repairs after the lapped Lola speared into the Acura under braking for Turn 5 left de Ferran, Simon Pagenaud and Scott Dixon at the tail of the LMP1 field - having earlier been fighting for a podium.

The delay also severely damaged de Ferran's title hopes as the championship leading Highcroft Acura is on course for a top six finish. A subsequent crash by Dixon has since dropped the De Ferran car further away from the pack.

"I don't know what the hell happened," de Ferran told AUTOSPORT. "I braked late for the chicane, turned in and 'bam'. I thought: 'What the hell was that?' It's ridiculous.

"It broke the left-rear suspension the impact was so hard. We had to change the whole section. I'm sure the car is not handling the same now and it must have popped Scott off braking for Turn 5."

De Ferran said he had been delighted with his performance in the wet first stint, when he had dicing for the top three with the Peugeots and the #1 Audi.

"We had a great first stint, the car was handling well and I was being very careful with the tyres in the beginning and that paid off earlier in the stint," he said.

"I was past both Peugeots and left them for dead, and the car was really running well. Then we made a call with the tyres - we went for scuffed dries and they were up to temperature quite quickly and we were up to second!

"The whole idea was to cause an upset and we knew that these conditions could play into our hands. It's just a shame that a misjudgement from another competitor took us out of contention. He wasn't even fighting for position, he was a lap behind."

He added that the team now planned to just run to the finish and hope to move on as others hit trouble.

"What we have to do is see if we can get to the end here, score as many points as possible," said de Ferran. "But we lost a lot of points doing repairs, but right now we aim to do as many laps as possible."