Peugeot Beats Audi To Petit Le Mans Pole Position

The No. 7 Peugeot 908 took pole position for the Petit Le Mans race at Road Atlanta
Photo: Anne Proffit

As is customary in major sports car racing, the 14th annual Petit Le Mans on the 2.94-mile, 12-turn Road Atlanta road course will come down to a battle between Peugeot and Audi. 

The two turbodiesel-powered behemoths of the sport will square off when the green flags fly on Saturday morning and battle throughout the day and evening until either 10 hours or 1,000 miles are in the books.

Peugeot won the pole position for this race with Anthony Davidson taking the No. 7 908 he shares with Sebastien Bourdais and Simon Pagenaud to the fastest speed of the qualifying session of 135.611 seconds, followed by Timo Bernhard (partnered by Romain Dumas and Marcel Fassler) in the No. 1 Audi R18, a scant .25 of a mile an hour behind.

Their teammates, the No. 8 Peugeot of Franck Montagny, Stephane Sarrazin and Alex Wurz and the No. 2 Audi of Dindo Capello, Tom Kristensen and Allan MacNish have the second row.

The Sebring winning year-old Peugeot 908 Hdi-FAP of Nicolas Lapierre, Nic Minassian and Alex Wurz starts fifth while the Rebellion Toyota is first in the petrol class and sixth on the grid with Nicolas Prost, Neel Jani and Andrea Belicchi are sixth.  LM P1 cars occupy the first 12 grid spots.

In the LM P2 category, the No. 55 Level 5 HPD ARX-01g open cockpit car of Scott Tucker, Marino Franchitti and Luiz Diaz claimed pole position, followed by an Oreca 03 Nissan and their Level 5 HPD stablemates.

In the fiercely competitive GT Pro classification, the pole went to the Ferrari AF Corse F458 Italia of Giancarlo Fisichella, Gianmaria Bruni and Pierre Kaffer, with the two BMWs in close pursuit. 

There are 53 entries--the maximum allowed--for this race and all drivers are concerned by traffic with so many cars on the undulating Road Atlanta circuit. "It will be chaos," said Bourdais as he watched his teammate overcome the Audi challenge. "We really can't change our lines to accommodate the LM P1 cars; they come up on us so quickly and there are places on the track where we just can't see them," noted Shane Lewis, sharing one of the two Jaguar XKR entries.

Everyone expects the race to be a cat-and-mouse game until it's the final hour, when they'll truly be able to work for the checkered flags.  The night time, all agree, is when the stars will come out.

© 2011 Anne Proffit