"This has been a sweet and sour experience; in the beginning we were struggling with trying to go six hours with the Brakes and that's one of the things that didn't work for us and we lost some time [changing the pads]. But the car was great. Ryan did a good job; the Ferraris were so fast on the straight but we were faster on the slow parts of the track.

"The best part of the race for me, the moment when I was most inspired was trying to go to the end of the first 6-hours on the limit and it paid off because in the end we were able to keep it on the same lead lap to start the second part of the race on the lead lap, which was crucial to being in contention for the last 15 minutes."

Richard Dean (GB), Managing Director & Co-Owner of United Autosports:

"It doesn't get much closer than that; 12 hours racing, three cars covered by nine seconds. I thought we had it there but the safety car that came out with 20 minutes to go cancelled out our lead and putting the three cars together made for quite a race at the end. We had a good strategy on our initial pit stops and it gave us something to play with at the end which put us back into the lead, so credit to all the team on that.

"I couldn't have been happier to be in the lead after 11 hours and 45 minutes. You just don't expect it to be a sprint race like that for 12 straight hours. AF Corse, a great team, and Kessel, they've all won championships before, so it feels hurtful right now that we've got so close and we're only third but it's no disgrace to be beaten by class teams like that and it shows how far we've come. We didn't make a mistake and I think we made time up. Unfortunately the Audi's a little bit heavier on brakes than the Ferrari, so we had to do an extra brake pad change in both races, which the Ferraris didn't, so I was very pleased to make that time back up in the pit stops again.

"Long distance races are all about team work and strategy but the three drivers, I have to say, were very close, very evenly matched; they didn't make a mistake and really kept us in with a shout right to the end."