Having already conquered the pinnacle of the sports car racing calendar
at Le Mans, Peugeot has confirmed its assault on the final major
endurance event of the 2009 season. In September at Road Atlanta,
Peugeot has entered two factory 908 HDi FAPs for the American Le Mans Series
event, the Petit Le Mans powered by MAZDA6.
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#08 Team Peugeot Total Peugeot 908 HDI FAP: Stéphane Sarrazin, Franck Montagny, Sébastien Bourdais. Photo by Eric Gilbert.
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Piloting the closed-top diesels that dominated this year's 24 Hours of
Le Mans are Pedro Lamy, Nicolas Minassian, Franck Montagny and Stephane
Sarrazin. Montagny and Sarrazin, the French drivers racing for the
"French lions," co-drove with Sebastien Bourdais at La Sarthe to a
second place overall finish behind their sister car of David Brabham,
Alexander Wurz and Marc Gene.
"It would be hard for us to imagine a stronger end to 2009 than with
Peugeot sending not one but two clean diesel-powered prototypes for
an event that truly has become a spectacle on the landscape of global
motorsport," said ALMS series president and CEO Scott Atherton.
"With the Le Mans trophy already in hand, the potential of adding yet
another significant honor to close out the year would wrap up a season
for the ages...especially if the rumor mill is indeed accurate and
other world-class teams and manufacturers who are no strangers to Road
Atlanta, Petit Le Mans powered by MAZDA6 and Peugeot confirm their
entries in the near future," he added.
Atherton of course is indirectly referring to Audi, which has taken a
step back from full season competition this year. It is the first time
in either ALMS or the Le Mans Series that Audi has taken this direction
since premiering their initial prototype, the R8, in 1999.
It has otherwise been a year devoid of manufacturer competition in ALMS
P1 aside from the new Acura ARX02-a and a pair of customer Lolas. The
Corsa Motorsports Ginetta Zytek hybrid has just got up and running the
last two rounds but has yet to challenge for overall victory. Audi has
not yet confirmed its participation in the event after minimal running
of its new R15 TDI that more or less struggled at Le Mans.
Peugeot will for the second straight year complete its participation
in all of Sebring, Le Mans, and Road Atlanta. They have not won at the
Sebring 12 Hours in two prior starts and in its only Road Atlanta start.
Peugeot made its debut at Road Atlanta last season and in an epic fight
over the 1000-mile event, fell just short of Audi's R10 TDIs. The gap
after nearly 10 hours of racing was merely 4.512 seconds to the winning
Audi, Sarrazin, Minassian and Christian Klien trailing home Allan
McNish, Dindo Capello and Emanuele Pirro.
At this year's Le Mans, Peugeot lodged a protest against the front
bodywork of the Audi R15 TDI, but dropped it after the race. It mattered
not as Peugeot had the outright speed to claim its first 24H title since
1993.
While Road Atlanta is the remaining pinnacle of the American sports car
series, there are more events to come with the Le Mans Series' race at
Algarve in Portugal this weekend and the debut of the Asian Le Mans
Series later this season.
Either way, Peugeot's participation at Petit ensures it will once again
be a barnburner.
