“Compared to an F1 car, the first things you notice about an LMP1 car are the extra weight and the higher centre of gravity. It tests the driver and is perhaps a wee bit more challenging to drive. Certainly at Spa, Eau Rouge in an F1 car is easy flat, but you have to hold on to the 919 a bit more and our speeds are about 20-30kph down through the quick stuff.

“Where we have advantage is in the slow corners. An F1 car stops better, and the line and trajectory aren’t much different, but we maybe want to get the car turned in sooner, so we can get back on the power. And then what we have in our favour is 4WD and fantastic Michelin tyres - we can really lean them, they’re so much better than the tissue paper we had in F1. So out of La Source, we can really give an F1 car a run.

“It would be really interesting to take the 919 somewhere like Barcelona, which is mostly slow-speed corners, because I reckon we’d be pretty competitive against an F1 car there.

“The biggest thing to get used to when I moved from F1, besides the weight of the car, was the traffic and range of conditions in a WEC race. You know, low sun, the rain, the dark and, most of all, the other cars, which maybe don’t have such experienced drivers and might be travelling much slower. So you need the car to give you confidence, be really consistent and predictable.

“And where you see F1 cars backing off and having to manage fuel reserves, we never have to do that - we’re flat out, all the way. And the 919 is just awesome, the most advanced car I’ve driven, without a shadow of a doubt.”