Nasamax plans changes to improve pace at Spa.

Although encouraged by its fifth place performance in the third round of the Le Mans Endurance Series at Silverstone last month, Team Nasamax is determined to find greater pace for this weekend's fourth and final outing in Belgium.

Although out-gunned by the three Audi R8s and the best of the Zyteks, which led the race early on, the Nasamax DM139 impressed with its strong and solid run on wholly renewable bio-ethanol fuel, even though its downforce levels - dictated by the 2004 regulations to which the car was designed - hampered its progress. This is the area in which technical director John McNeil hopes to make the biggest gains ahead of this Sunday's outing at Spa-Francorchamps.

"At Silverstone, where you need the most downforce, we were evidently short of it," McNeil admitted, "This is because we are the only LMP1 car running to the new specification at the moment, and the cornering speeds are limited in the 2004 regulations by reducing the downforce on the cars.

"We reached a good mechanical balance for the maximum possible grip, and had the use of Michelin tyres, which we find to be more suited to the car. With careful planning of pit stops and driver changes, and no problems to prolong our stops, we ran through to a strong fifth place. Our three drivers coped extremely well with a car which was not at all easy to drive at that pace, but their patience and maturity was evident on the live TV pictures."

The Nasamax DM139 Judd topped 290kph - around 180mph - in qualifying at Silverstone and was again the fastest car on the straights, as it has been at Monza and Le Mans earlier in the year. The team will now hope to maintain that performance but combine it with better grip at Spa.

"Spa is another high-downforce circuit, and we will be seeking more downforce for this weekend," McNeil continued, "We have a few small developments, such as the rear wing geometry and position, and we expect to be nearer the pace at Spa, as the power and mechanical grip we have should help redress the balance. We've made a lot of progress curing the low rpm 'hole' in engine performance, which made the car difficult to drive in certain conditions, and we had eliminated it for the Silverstone race. We also have a new specification wiring loom on the engine."

Romain Dumas will again be driving with Werner Lupberger and Robbie Stirling, who qualified third and finished sixth in the EuroBOSS series' race at Spa last season, driving Nasamax's 840bhp Reynard-Cosworth Champ Car, which also ran on bio-ethanol. The car will be running with new Nasamax branding for Spa as it is being filmed for a science programme on the Nasamax project.