Peugeot Beats Audi to Capture Petit Le Mans Pole

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A pair of Peugeots will start from the front row for Saturday’s 12th running the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, leading the field in one of the world’s premier endurance racing events.

The Le Mans winning Peugeots once again showed their pace, beating the Audis to take the first two starting positions. The leading Peugeot 908 HDI FAP, driven by Nicolas Minassian, lapped the 2.54-mile, 12-turn course in 1:06:937, .223 faster than teammate Franck Montagny. The closest Audi R15 TDI, driven by Dindo Capello, was 1.04 seconds off the pace while his teammate Lucas Luhr was .028 behind him.

“The lap was very good, “Nicolas Minassian said after qualifying. “We had a few problems with the car, and we’ve been working on that information. We share information with the 08 car, and it has helped. But this car we go anywhere and it is quick.”

The Peugeots have a history of being faster than the Audis. Until Le Mans this year, the Audis won with reliability and machine-like precision by the drivers and crew. However, Le Mans saw them unprepared, as the cars had overheating problems that hadn’t turned up in testing, and the crew missed the set-up and spent the first half of the race changing bodywork and making adjustments.

Meanwhile, Peugeot, which had always been unprepared or stricken with bad luck, turned in a flawless performance at Le Mans, seemingly doing everything right, and finishing one-two.

“I think the team has improved a lot by the experience they’ve had over the years,” said Minassian. “The mechanics, engineers, they were focused but young, so the experience has really helped us develop.”

Audi has dominated endurance racing since 2000, winning every Le Mans except two, and never losing at Petit Le Mans. Audi would like very much to avenge their Le Mans loss, while Peugeot is eager to show that their Le Mans win was not a fluke.

“Racing in America is the best training you can get,” Nicolas Minassian said. You get the best fight with the teams, very professional. And the tracks here are very challenging. It’s satisfying when you are successful.


Simon Pagenaud was fastest of the non-diesels, turning a lap of 1:08.348 in his Acura ARX-02a. Pagenaud might have gone faster, but he was balked on his last lap by the Drayson Lola B09 60 Judd, which lost its fuel pump and had to limp back to the pits on the auxiliary.

Scott Sharp crashed the other P1 Acura during practice on Thursday, flipping the car three-and-a-half times and totally writing off the monocoque. HPD, the Honda performance division, sent a new tub from California by air freight over night, and the Patrón Highcroft team will be working ‘round the clock to get the car ready to run for tomorrow’s race.

Dyson on the P2 Pole

In P2, Marino Franchitti put the Dyson Lola B09 86 Mazda on the pole with a time of 1:10.152, beating the Cytosport Porsche RS Spyder of Klaus Graf and the Lowes-sponsored Acura ARX-01B of P2 champion Adrian Fernandez.

“The BP Dyson Mazda car was unbelievable,” Marino Franchitti told reporters. “I was pretty confident we had a good car that could compete for the pole. When you put together a good lap, it can really be a lot of fun.”

As with the Peugeots, the Dyson Lola-Mazdas are always fast, but not always running at the end. “This is the first year of our program so to get it to the end will just be fantastic,” said Franchitti. ”We know the Porsche and the Acura will just run and run, so we need to focus on running our race and focus on finishing.”

The Team Cytosport Porsche has a history of speed and reliability, but the car is a new acquisition for the team; they have only run two races this year. If the car performs as well as it did last year, the Porsche has a good chance of winning the class.

The #16 Dyson car is testing a new environmentally friendly fuel, a mixture of ethanol, biobutanol, and ethanol developed by their sponsor, BP. Biobutanol is an alcohol fuel similar to ethanol but more powerful and less corrosive, and less easily contaminated by water. It can be produced from many non-food sources, including green algae.

The #16 Dyson car will not run for points and will start from the back of the grid. The ALMS is considering adding a biobutanol blend to its lineup of alternative fuels for the 2010 season.

Petit Le Mans, sanctioned by the American Le Mans Series and recognized by ACO, the governing body of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, is a ten-hour, 1000 mile road race. Winning teams in each class get a guaranteed invitation to France to race in the next season’s 24 Hours.

Tickets for the event are available at the Road Atlanta Web site.

Details of GT2 qualifying can be found here.