“The Le Mans 24 Hours was a fantastic experience for me,” he enthused. “I loved it. First of all there was the ambience – to stay for a whole week at the circuit and see all the people there, all the passion – which was really nice, and when I was out on the track for sure it was a bit different to what I had been used to before in F1. The circuit is 13km-long, with the Mulsanne Straight where you're always going at over 300km/h.

“It wasn't that so much that impressed me, though; what impressed me was the length of the stints. When you are in the car for two hours – or sometimes three hours with a double stint – that's pretty tough.

“The most difficult thing to manage was the traffic, but that's just part of the 24 Hours; you have to be very careful, because it's easy to lose a lot of time in the traffic and also to gain a lot of time, so you need to manage that well. That's one of the most difficult things I've found this year both in the Le Mans Series and the Le Mans 24 Hours.

“Driving at night was fantastic, though. I did a stint at the end of the day when it was just starting to get dark, and I enjoyed it a lot. You feel you're alone in the world in the middle of the circuit, and when you're going round at 320km/h at night it's a great atmosphere.”

The race unfortunately would ultimately end in a heavy accident for Fassler not long before midnight, causing the car to be retired from proceedings and bringing a premature conclusion to a generally positive experience. Much the same could be said for Panis and Lapierre's efforts at Monza and the Nürburgring – with gearbox woes curtailing the #6 Judd-powered machine's progress in both outings – but the former BAR-Honda and Toyota ace is hopeful of ending his season on a high on British soil this weekend.

“I love Silverstone,” the man from Grenoble underlined. “It's one of the quickest circuits we still have in F1 and prototypes, and I think it's one of the most challenging tracks we race at during the season. I'm really looking forward to it.

“Maybe we'll have some rain too which could help us to have a good result, and why shouldn't we finish on the podium in the last race? That would be a good way for us to begin to prepare for next season.”

As to what the future holds for Olivier Panis beyond that, the recently-turned 42-year-old is uncertain, but he makes it clear that he will not be satisfied with being merely the best of the petrol-powered brigade for long – he wants to win.

“The Le Mans Series is a really good series,” he acknowledged. “The ambience is good and the performance of the cars is pretty competitive. There are a lot of quick drivers out there too, and I'm enjoying it a lot. That's why I think I'll keep doing this next year, but I do have one reservation.

“When we started the season, the regulations were much better for the diesel-engined cars, but you know, I'm a racer, and it's really painful for me to be sixth on the grid and ten seconds slower than pole position. That's not acceptable for me personally, but they were the rules this year and if we started the season and accepted them, we can't then complain.