Peugeot claims third consecutive Petit Le Mans victory

Franck Montagny, Stephen Sarrazin and Alex Wurz took victory by five laps in the final round of this season’s American Le Mans Series at Road Atlanta on Saturday after both Audi R18 TDIs retired.

The simmering battle between prototype racing’s two heavyweights came to a head at the 1000-mile/10-hour event when the #1 and #8 cars came together.

By the eighth hour, Montagny had seen his lead slowly eroded by a charging Romain Dumas. And having already backed out of an opening on the previous lap, the Audi looked to profit when a GTC class Porsche held up the Peugeot entering turn 7. When Montagny defended his position by moving across onto the racing line, the Audi had little choice but to tangle with the backmarker and retire, leaving Marcel Fassler and Timo Bernhard, as well as Dumas, to rue what might have been.

With team-mates Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen and Rinaldo Capello failing to finish after suffering from steering problems, Peugeot also picked up the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup LMP1 manufacturers’ title with one race left to run.

ORECA claimed an impressive second place in the previous generation Peugeot 908 HDi after a trouble free drive with Nicolas Lapierre, Marc Gene and Nicolas Minassian at the wheel. They finished in front of the factory Lola-Aston Martin which was guided home to a solid third position by Stefan Mucke, Adrian Fernandez and Harold Primat.

The LMP2 class was won by Level 5 Motorsports’ Scott Tucker, Christophe Bouchut and Joao Barbosa whose HPD ARX-01G took victory on debut with the team. They tussled for the lead with the Signatech Oreca-Nissan until the French car encountered power steering issues late on, although third place behind the United Autosports OAK Pescarolo was enough to give Franck Mailleux, Lucas Ordoñez and Jean-Karl Vernay the title.

In GT the AF Corse Ferrari 458 of ex-Formula One driver Giancarlo Fisichella sealed victory after coming back from a lap down to win the event. The Italian driver was penalised after he ran a red light at the end of the pit-lane. However, team-mate Gianmaria Bruni quickly regained the lost ground before getting the better of factory BMW driver Joey Hand in his final stint.

Ken Dobson, Henri Richard and Ryan Lewis took the LMPC spoils for the PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports squad while Black Swan Racing’s Tim Pappas, Jeroen Bleekemolen and Sebastiaan Bleekemolen cleaned up in GTC.

Motors TV is the European home of the American Le Mans Series.

Tom Cauvain