The official Audi and Peugeot statements on tonight's qualifying session
for the Le Mans 24 Hours said that the two rival teams were going to
work on race settings rather than taking part in a competition for the
pole position.
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#8 Team Peugeot Total Peugeot 908: Stéphane Sarrazin, Franck Montagny, Sébastien Bourdais. Photo by Eric Gilbert.
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However, Stephane Sarrazin drove three quick qualifying-style laps just
before the session ended at midnight, and his efforts paid off for the
French manufacturer, with the pole position for Peugeot's home race.
Sarrazin set two quick lap times in his #8 Peugeot 908 HDi
FAP late in the second session, getting within seven hundredths of the
time set by the team's archrivals -- in this case Allan McNish, in an
Audi R15 TDI. However, each time he encountered traffic late in the lap,
and was not quite able to match the Scot's lap time.
"We set up the car the for the race, that was our target," Sarrazin
claimed after qualifying. "We did a quick time at the end race, but the
pole was not our goal."
However, in spite of Peugeot's stated goal to ignore the race for
pole, the team sent Sarrazin out on soft tires, which only last for
two qualifying laps (plus the out and in laps) not only once, but
twice. After Sarrazin had come close but fallen slightly short, the
team brought him in, put a second set of soft tires on, and sent him
back out. Another fast lap, without traffic this time, and Sarrazin had
claimed the pole position from McNish by a margin of 0.762 seconds.
Testing soft tires for the race? Maybe. But after one two-lap stint the
wear on those tires was already quite apparent, and maybe that second
stint wasn't really required ... unless you wanted to win the pole
position, that is.
McNish, for his part, had done his quick lap, also on soft tires, at the
very end of the first two-hour qualifying session, just as the sun was
beginning to set. The Audi team swapped on new tires for the Scot, and
then sent him out with little more than three and a half minutes left in
the session. It was touch and go, but McNish just barely made it to the
finish line to start his flying lap before the chequered flag flew to
end the session.
Having started the lap from a one-second deficit to Sarrazin, McNish
drove a stonking qualifier in the #1 Audi R15, largely free of traffic,
leapfrogging the Peugeot with a time of 3:23.650.
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#1 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R15 TDI: Allan McNish, Rinaldo Capello, Tom Kristensen. Photo by Eric Gilbert.
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"I don't know if that time will hold for pole," he mused during the
break between the sessions -- and apparently prescient. "I love the
circuit, I enjoyed the lap. When you build the lap from the first
corner, you see the change. The big time change is the Porsche Curves at
the end. Yesterday being a bit of a washout, we still have to make the
adjustments for the race. It will be fun anyway for the race. Certainly
we have a much better raceable car than the R10 of last year."
In the second session, Audi focused on testing tires and working on
race settings, with neither the #1 nor #3 Audis setting times likely to
threaten pole position. Marco Werner, in the #2 car, did drive a quick
lap in the closing minutes of the second session, but was unable to
improve from his sixth position.
The #9 and #7 Peugeots were significantly off the pace, with Nicolas
Minassian hustling the former into third grid position, 1.210 seconds
behind Sarrazin's pole position. The #9, though, ended the session
languishing in fifth place, behind not only its teammates and McNish's
Audi, but also Team Pescarolo's customer Peugeot.
That customer Peugeot in fourth? That was the legendary Pescarolo magic
dust doing its work, combined with some slick driving by Jean-Christophe
Boullion, giving the ubiquitous French privateer its first second-row
starting position in a long time.
The other two factory Audis finished the session sixth and seventh,
between two and three-and-a-half seconds adrift of their teammate
McNish's fastest lap time.
The Lola-Aston Martins were the fastest of the petrol-powered cars;
the ACO rule changes to equalize the diesel performance with that of
the petrol-engined cars had done its job, bringing Stefan Mucke in the
team's lead car, the #007, within 4.292 seconds of Sarrazin's pole, well
down from last year's 6.645 seconds. Jan Charouz did spin off the track
in the dying minutes of the session, though without any substantial
damage to the car.
While Anthony Davidson was able to bring the #008 to within 0.524
seconds of its sister car, the team's third entry, the #009, was mired
near the bottom of the P1 timesheets, 17th out of 20 cars in class. On
the other hand, the independent Spedy Racing Team Sebah entry, with a
largely identical Lola B08/60-Aston Martin was able to nip on the heels
of the #008.
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#31 Team Essex Porsche RS Spyder: Kristian Poulsen, Casper Elgaard, Emmanuel Collard. Photo by Eric Gilbert.
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In the P2 class, it had looked suspiciously like a Porsche battle after
yesterday's practice, and that was exactly the result in qualifying
today.
In the fight between the two Porsche RS Spyders, it was Essex Racing
taking first in class and twentieth overall, with a time of 1:37.720.
Sascha Maassen ran some quick laps for the NAVI Team Goh, and the team's
final qualifying time was just 0.082 seconds slower than that of their
Porsche rivals.
Speedy Racing Team Sebah not only impressed in P1, but also took third
place (and 22nd overall) on the P2 grid, with their Lola B09/80-Judd
clocking a time of 3:41.724, 3.922 seconds off the pace of Team Essex.
Clearly the RS Spyders, in spite of not having had any development in
2009, are still the class of the P2 field.
At the front, though, it should be very much an even Peugeot-Audi battle
once the race starts on Saturday afternoon. The Germans have closed down
the gap: in 2008 McNish -- the fastest of the Audis -- was 5.332 seconds
behind Sarrazin's pole position time, and that gap is now down to 0.762
seconds. Reliability, tire wear, strategy, and driver skill will
now likely be the key factors in determining this year's winner. The
teams are evenly matched, and neither one will be able to run away and
hide.
See also:
Corvette, Lizard sweep to GT poles at Le Mans
