The Rubber Match for Peugeot and Audi

Its time for round three in the Peugeot Audi battle as practice begins tomorrow for the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta which will take place on September 26th

They’re baaaack!

At LotPro.com where see where both Audi and Peugeot have gone toe-to-toe this year in the high-stakes game of endurance racing.

The opening salvo occurred in Florida in March as the two diesel-powered superpowers of endurance racing squared off with reigning champion Audi fielding a new car, the Audi R15 TDi against the Peugeot 908 HDi FAP.

At the end of 12 hours, less than 23 seconds separated the first Audi R15 TDi team of McNish/Capello/Kristensen and the second Peugeot 908 HDi FAP team of Montagny/Bourdais/Sarrazin. Third place also belonged to Audi with the Rockenfeller/Werner/Luhr team finishing 2 laps down, while the first Peugeot team was forced to retire with 25 minutes left in the race with a gearbox failure.

Round 2 – France

The Le Mans 24 hour race was quite another story. Peugeot was finally able to sort through the durability issues of the 908 HDi FAP that had plagued the team in the two previous years with a convincing 1-2 podium finish.

Audi, on the other hand, found that it had very little time in which to dial in the new R15. With only Wednesday evening’s free practice (in the rain), the Germans were forced to do much of their sorting out during qualifying on Thursday. At the end of 24 hours, Audi found itself 5 laps down from the second place No. 8 Peugeot and 6 laps down from the winning French car

Round 3 – back in the USA

The third round will take place this weekend at Road Atlanta and much more is at stake than just the top step of the podium. Audi has not lost a Petit Le Mans race at Road Atlanta since the inception of the series in 2000. And to make things even more interesting, even Peugeot admits that the course could favor the Germans, citing the advantage the Audis have in downforce – a factor that wasn’t nearly as important at Le Mans.

According to Peugeot Sport Director Olivier Quesnel, the two Peugeot 908 HDi FAP entries (numbers 07 and 08) will be in the same aerodynamic configuration as that used in the Spa 1000 km, rather than the set-up used at the Le Mans 24 Hours. “We have chosen this aero configuration because the circuit layout calls for more downforce… which should suit our main competitors, and will make them very hard to beat. At certain points of the circuit, the difference between our cars may be significant, just as it was at the first corner at Sebring, for example, where they were 10 kph faster than us simply because their car produces more downforce.”

Audi Sport Team Joest Technical Director Ralf Jüttner had this to say about the upcoming weekend: “We’re happy to be able to contest a race again three months after Le Mans. We want to show that the R15 TDI is better than it looked at Le Mans. I think that the track at Road Atlanta should suit the car pretty well. Still, it won’t be an easy race for us. With twelve LMP1 cars on the grid, it’ll be a real battle that will probably be heavily shaped by tactics as well. Last year, there were ten caution periods. Getting everything just right will be crucial – and of course a little racing luck is necessary as well.”

Let the racing begin

Practice sessions begin at 8 a.m. tomorrow with the LMP1 and LMP2 testing to begin at 2:00 p.m. Qualifying for LMP1/LMP2 will begin at 2:55 p.m. on Friday with the race scheduled to begin at 11:15 a.m. on Saturday (1,000 miles or 10 hours maximum).

Tags: audi, audi r15, audi r15 tdi, le mans, lmp1, petit le mans, peugeot, peugeot 908, peugeot 908 hdi fap, road atlanta, sebring