Ground Breaking Cars Star As Peugeot Dominates Petit LeMans

Orlando, FL (October 4, 2010) – It was another rematch between the two juggernauts, Audi and Peugeot and Road Atlanta was the place to be. This after last year’s rain-shortened Petit LeMans –it was shaping up to be a great duel. It was Audi’s first race in the U.S. This year and they were also bringing in their ace driver, Tom Kristensen. Tom was very happy to be back at challenging Road Atlanta. It was his first time back in five years and said he really missed it. Tom loves the track and he said it is very challenging due to the elevation changes and also the traffic, the latter of which was a big factor in the race.

The other big deal for the weekend was the Porsche debut of its Hybrid. This was really big for Porsche. The project had been in the works for awhile and was ahead of schedule. The Hybrid really performed well in its two previous races in Europe.

The year’s Petit LeMans, the 13th, saw a remarkable driver line up. Included were this year’s 24 Hours of LeMans winners, Mike Rockenfeller, Romain Dumas and Timo Bernard, were all driving the Audi Hybrid. Recall Mike Rockenfeller who won the 24 hours of Daytona and Lemans this year and now is getting to work on this exciting groundbreaking project. Rockenfeller the youngest winner at LeMans said it was really neat to be able to drive all these different cars –this year the Diesel and Hybrid- one can consider to be history making moments! Rockenfeller felt really lucky to be a part of it.

The Hybrid Porsche got a lot of attention and a lot of fans. Many wanted to see it and witness a history making moment. But let’s be honest — the Hybrid raced in its own class… Without competition. Great deal if you can get it.

In front of a record crowd of 124,000 people, there were nine cautions. No question, the Peugeot 908 HDI FAP really dominated the race, leading 299 laps out of 394. Pedro Lamy, Franck Montagny and Stephane Sarrazin won the race for Peugeot.

“It’s always a difficult race with the traffic,” according to Lamy, who said Road Atlanta was his last race with Peugeot. Lamy admitted, “We knew we had to be fast through it. We knew there’d be a lot of safety cars. So I’m really happy with [the outcome.]”

“The team did a great job and we improved a lot the strategy,” according to Sarrazin. Sarrazin went on to say, “We did a lot of good times. It was a tough time with all the safety cars. We worked hard all week setting up the care. It was really good with good balance. It just was perfect.”

Following the lead Peugeot was the team car of Marc Gene, Alexander Wurz and Anthony Davidson finishing second, followed by the stalwart team Audi R15 team of Renaldo Capello, Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish.

In the GT2 class, Corvette was the winner, their first of the year. The drivers were Oliver Gavin, Jan Magnussen and Emmanuel Collard. Corvette took the win away from Risi Ferrari, who ran out of fuel with two turns left. Ferrari lost the championship to BMW because of the team’s gaffe. Ferrari’s misstep left the driver’s championship in the hands of Patrick Long and Jorg Bergmeister.

In P2, Highcroft Racing won the championship with David Brabham and Simon Pagenaud over the Musclemilk Porsche Spyder.

Ahhhh… A perfect weekend, for Peugeot, at least!

Eddie LePine

Eddie has been involved in motorsports for over 30 years as photographer, columnist, and driver. Eddie also is now a retired racer (well, retired unless a good ride pops up).

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