Michael Bentwood’s first outing in the FIA GT Championship proved the potential of the Nissan 350Z and the car’s lead driver. The weekend started with promise, but as the sessions progressed, weakness in the car became apparent with failure of three drive shafts.

This was Michael’s first visit to the French Grand Prix circuit, “I loved the circuit, it was hugely challenging, but I was able to learn it in three laps,” says Michael, “and I was pleased that I was able to set the pace for the team all weekend and by going three-seconds quicker than my team mates in the race warm up was a real highlight.” Bentwood's team mates described Michael as being "absolutely on it and massively committed into the high speed corners"

“The car was pretty quick in the high speed corners, where we made mincemeat of the Porches, but in the acceleration zones and down the back straight the Porches just pulled away from us too easily.”

The Nissan 350Z has been under development over the winter, which is why the problems with the drive shafts are coming to light now, “The car is improving all the time, but with the increased horsepower that Nissan have found through the winter, the drive-shafts just can’t handle the increased torque from the V6,” says Michael, “but Hewland are building new drive shafts that should be able to handle the increased power.

Michael had to start from the pit lane because the flywheel had worn out, and the car needed bump starting, but 15 laps into the race the drive shaft broke.

Michael got the damaged car back to the pits, “the guys did a remarkable job of changing the drive-shaft, but we were 13 laps down when we rejoined the track..”

“I knew their was something wrong with the newly fitted drive shaft from the noise it was making, and sure enough it broke about 35 mins later, but luckily it didn’t put us in the wall!”

During that 35 minutes Michael became extremely dehydrated, “It was like nothing that I have experienced before. The ambient air temperature was about 31 degrees and the track temp was about 46 degrees”

“When I stopped the team couldn’t touch any of the metal work inside the car. They reckoned the temperature was 103 degrees Celsius.”

“At times I was suffering mild paralysis in my legs, and I think I was beginning to hallucinate, but one of the other drivers in a Ferrari 550 ended up in intensive care!”

Unfortunately, the failure of the third drive shaft caused significant damage to the underneath of the car and the team withdrew the Nissan from the race.

As with all motorsport endeavours, it is only through racing that problems can be overcome, “the car is improving, but it couldn’t handle the tough conditions at Magny Cours,” says Michael, “but Thruxton at the end of the month should be interesting.

This week "Autocar" features 20 questions with Michael

For further info on Michael and the race programme please click on  www.michaelbentwood.com built by Racecar