ORECA team principal Hughes de Chaunac said that his entire team was "devastated" when their factory-supported Peugeot 908 broke down with just over an hour to run at Le Mans.
The No. 4 car was running a minute behind the third-placed Audi when it suffered an engine failure with Loic Duval at the wheel.
"This is a very difficult time for us," he told AUTOSPORT. "The entire team is devastated after working so hard, coming back after repairing the broken driveshaft during the night, and being within sight of the podium."
"It's a shame because the car was running so well," said co-driver Olivier Panis. "We had a very good pace. Of course we had the broken driveshaft in the night, otherwise we could have been ahead of the Audis, but in any case we were catching up. We could have finished on the podium.
"It was an engine failure, same as for [Alex] Wurz and [Franck] Montagny. Next year? We'll try. We'll see."