Jani “not happy” with third car issue in three races

Their No.18 Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 car was gifted the lead when the sister car of Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard was given a one-minute penalty for a pitstop infringement.

But Dumas brought the car into the pits with just over 30 minutes to go, and went to the garage because telemetry had shown that the car was critically low on electrical power.

“[It was] a problem with the battery, we don’t know what, but yeah, obviously we had no power, so we had to stop,” Dumas told Motorsport.com. “Unfortunately it’s our third race in a row with problems in our car.”

Jani corroborated Dumas’s thoughts, after a trio of promising results have slipped through their fingers.

“To be honest, you know, three races in a row we were on pole, three races in a row we have issues," he said. "Clearly we cannot be happy.

“Instead of being in the clear hunt for the championship, we’re now on the back foot, no doubt.

“The other car didn’t have issues – I think it’s just bad luck. So bad luck does exist, unfortunately maybe we need to go find a voodoo master, who knows?

“With the other car, 17, they get penalties, everything, and they still win, that’s what you call luck, they missed the pit box, that’s what you call luck.”

The car fell to 12^th, with the No.17 car ending up as the winner. The team brought the car out to do one lap at the end so they could be classified as finishers and earn points for the championship.

“We had just the battery to do one lap so that’s why we only made one lap,” said Dumas.