Richards encouraged by LMS debut

The Charouz Racing-run prototype finished third in its first race, behind the lead Peugeot and Audi diesels, and was easily the quickest of the petrol-powered cars.

Lead driver Stefan Mucke even diced with the Peugeots and Audis at the beginning of the race before settling into a rhythm and, with Jan Charouz, brought the car home third, two laps ahead of their next LMP1 rival.

"The car ran for the very first time less than eight weeks ago, so to be on the podium at its first race is an amazing achievement," Richards told autosport.com.

"It has proven to be both fast and reliable, and the production-based Aston Martin DBR9 engine has shown how well it can work in a prototype."

Mucke added: "It's simply fantastic, It's unbelievable how everything worked, I didn't have a single problem during the race. The Lola was faultless and I can't wait for the next race."

Richards is eager to continue to work hard on the car in the hope of repeating the podium finish in the Le Mans 24 Hours on June 14-15.

"We now need to build on this great start, to continue with the development programme, and see what performance we can extract from the car as we head for Le Mans in June.

"You have to remember that the Charouz programme is a relatively small, privately-funded race programme, and while we have established ourselves as the fastest petrol car - and are setting our sights on closing the gap with Peugeot and Audi - our performance is still a long way short of the diesels."