Peugeot finally clinched victory with their 908HDi in an epic Le Mans 24 Hours at the weekend.
The French manufacturer have had superior pace to their rivals Audi for the past two years at the famous endurance race at La Sarthe, only for technical problems and errors to see them lose out on victory. This year however they dominated the race, with their #9 car driven by Marc Gene, Alex Wurz and David Brabham taking the win.
The sister #8 car started on pole but fell into trouble having led the early stages following a fine opening stint by Franck Montagny. The car spent ten minutes in the pits to repair a right rear upright, dropping a couple of laps off the lead, but recovered in the hands of Montagny, Stephane Sarrazin and Sebastien Bourdais to finish second at the chequered flag.
2008 winners Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen and Dindo Capello had to settle for third in the new Audi R15. They were out paced by the Peugeots throughout but remained in the hunt just a lap off the leaders. They lost second place with four hours to go after a loss of power resulted in McNish pitting for repairs, allowing the #8 Peugeot through.
Aston Martin Racing finished a very credible fourth overall and first in the unofficial petrol class on their LMP1 debut with their #007 Eastern European car of Stefan Mucke, Jan Charouz and Tomas Enge.
The #11 Team Oreca car finished fifth, with the third #7 Peugeot recovering to sixth after an early pit lane collision with the Pescarolo Peugeot knocked it out of contention.
The two other works Audis endured a torrid race. The #3 car of Alex Premat, Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas had an early off and struggled throughout to finish 17th, while the #2 car was terminally crashed after just 104 laps by Lucas Luhr.
The Pescarolo Peugeot ran strongly throughout in fourth position but retired in the early hours of the morning when Benoit Treluyer suffered an enormous accident at Terte Rouge from which he was fortunate to escape unscathed.
The #008 Aston Martin suffered its fair share of problems despite the Anthony Davidson, Jos Verstappen and Darren Turner driven machine showing superior pace to its #007 team-mate at times. The #009 car of Harold Primat, Stuart Hall and Peter Kox was plagued with issues throughout the race and eventually retired on Sunday morning after Primat crashed.
The Kolles Audi R10s both performed well, finishing seventh and ninth, while the Pescarolo Sport Pescarolo-Judd of Christophe Tinseau, Bruce Jouanny and Joao Barbosa showed strong reliability to claim eighth overall.
Le Mans 24 Hours results, LMP1 class
1 Peugeot Sport Total, Marc Gene, Alex Wurz, David Brabham, Puegeot 908 HDi, 382 laps
2 Team Peugeot Total, Sebastien Bourdais, Franck Montagny, Stephane Sarrazin, Peugeot 908 HDi, 318 laps
3 Audi Sport Team Joest, Dindo Capello, Tom Kristensen, Allan McNish, Audi R15 TDI, 376 laps
4 AMR Eastern Europe, Jan Charouz, Stefan Mucke, Tomas Enge, Lola Aston Martin, 373 laps
5 Team Oreca Matmut-AIM, Olivier Panis, Nicolas Lapierre, Soheil Ayari, Oreca LC70 AIM, 370 laps
6 Team Peugeot Total, Nicolas Minassian, Pedro Lamy, Christian Klien, Peugeot 908 HDi, 369 laps
7 Kolles, Charles Zwolsman, Narain Karthikeyan, Andre Lotterer, Audi R10 TDi
8 Pescarolo Sport, Christophe Tinseau, Bruce Jouanny, Joao Barbosa, Pescarolo-Judd, 368 laps
9 Kolles, Christian Bakkerud, Christijan Albers, Giorgio Mondini, Audi R10 TDI, 360 laps
10 Signature Plus, Pierre Ragues, Franck Mailleux, Didier Andre, Courage-Oreca LC70-Judd, 344 laps
11 Aston Martin Racing, Anthony Davidson, Jos Verstappen, Darren Turner, Lola Aston Martin, 342 laps
12 Speedy Racing Team Sabeh, Andrea Belicchi, Nicolas Prost, Neel Jani, Lola Aston Martin, 342 laps
13 Audi Sport Team Joest, Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas, Alex Premat, Audi R15 TDI, 333 laps
14 Strakka Racing, Peter Hardman, Nick Leventis, Danny Watts, Ginetta-Zytek 09S, 325 laps
15 Creation Autosportif, Jamie Campbell-Walter, Vanina Ickx, Romain Ianetta, Creation CA07 Judd, 319 laps
Not classified
Aston Martin Racing, Stuart Hall, Harold Primat, Peter Kox, Lola Aston Martin, 252 laps
Team Oreca Matmut-AIM, Stephane Ortelli, Bruno Senna, Tiego Monteiro, Oreca LC70-AIM, 219 laps
Pescarolo Sport, Jean-Christophe Boullion, Benoit Treluyer, Simon Pagenaud, Peugeot 908 HDI, 210 laps
Team LNT, Lawrence Tomlinson, Nigel Moore, Richard Dean, Ginetta-Zytek 09S, 178 laps
Audi Sport North America, Lucas Luhr, Mike Rockenfeller, Marco Werner, Audi R15 TDI, 104 laps
Andy Wilkinson
International
