Jock's Jottings - PEUGEOTS ALL POWERFUL IN 1st QUALIFYING

PEUGEOTS ALL POWERFUL …

That was the most extraordinary qualifying session we have seen in recent years. There may have been others but we can’t think of one!
Everything revolved around the Peugeots and to be more specific the #8 Peugeot driven with ‘some verve’ ( to say the least!) by one Mr Stephane Sarrazin… let’s start from the very beginning.

It was a beautiful evening, not too hot, not too cold and perfectly clear and ideal for what we reckoned would be some quick times. Your ‘experts’ (?) reckoned that a sub 3:20 sec lap would be achievable, assuming that Peugeot carried on with their curious strategy of showing all their cards at once. One of your scribes actually put his tongue deep into his cheek and rather timidly suggested that it might be even quicker that.

As it turned out lap records fell like flies in all but one of the categories. Everything started fairly normally, you know cars going out doing a few laps and then coming in, making changes and going out again. Then at about 20:30 hrs all three Peugeots disappeared into their garages and the ‘tinkering’ began. When they emerged on what we had assumed were qualifying tyres and a dribble of fuel on board Sarrazin set off on his set of earth shatteringly quick laps. The build up was short and sweet and then he blasted off and simply annihilated the time he set testing (3:22 sec) with a blinding 3:18.513 secs, average speed 247.16 km/h ( 154.4 mph). The French contingent went potty and Dr Ullrich of Audi simply congratulated ‘our friends from Peugeot’ and pointed out that Audi were working on their race set up. He seemed totally unmoved! Three laps later Montagny put in a demoralising 3:18.682 secs and then four laps later Minassian popped in a 3:20.451 sec. So Peugeot had 1st / 2nd/ 3rd and Audi 4th/5th/6th, surely not the way they planned it? In LMP1.5, as we are now calling it, the petrol cars were way off the pace of the leaders with the #16 Pescarolo ten seconds, yes ten seconds, off pole. To add insult to injury the #16 car had a sizeable accident at the Porsche Curves when Dumas found the oil that the #59 Aston Martin had lain down and went off big time. It seems that the front suspension collapsed and Dumas was lucky to emerge unscathed.

We were intrigued to know if the Peugeots were on ‘qualifying’ tyres we were assured they were not. Michelin having put out a press release telling us about the fluorescent white paint on the sidewalls that would show the crowds who was using ‘qualifying’ tyres. The Peugeots did not have tyres that glowed in the dark so we have to assume there was nothing ‘special’ about them. We still have a nagging doubt… but if the weather is right tomorrow and they do use ‘fancy tyres’ who knows how fast they will go!

In LMP2 no less than four cars got under the old lap record with the two Porsche Spyders heading the field with the #31 team Essex car on provisional class pole followed by the #34 van Merksteijn car. The lead car was six second inside the previous lap record.

The only class that behaved even half normally was LM GT1 when the #63 Corvette ‘only’ beat last years best qualifying time. It was not a good day for the Aston Martins as they wound up 5th and 6th in class behind the #50 Larbre Saleen and the IPB Spartak Lamborghini Murcielago. Rather like Audi they told the world they were not at all fussed about this because they were working on their race set up. But Aston Martin , a factory team, can’t be happy about this (particularly ending up behind the Lambo’). OK so this is a 24 hour race and is a hot grid position all that important? Peugeot seem to think so. So maybe did Corvette! After their usual rather casual approach to testing they got themselves organised in qualifying and took a 1st / 2nd. We rather thought they might!

In LM GT2 there was another waiting game. Throughout most of the session the Ferraris appeared to have the edge over the Porsches until right at the end of the session when the Porsches seemed to move up a gear and the #80 Flying Lizard car calmly took provisional pole with the 76 IMSA Performance car just behind.

The night came to a slightly premature end when; right at the end of the session, there was an accident that involved the LMP2 #44 Kruse Schiller Motorsport, Lola Mazda driven by Noda. It was a very spectacular shunt that Noda will have been very relieved to have walked unsteadily away from. Once again a prototype seemed to get airborne and then rolled several times into the gravel traps at the Dunlop Curve. The car was extensively damaged and may not make tomorrow’s session. This brought out a red flag and the effective end of the session.

It was quite a night all round, one that won’t quickly be forgotten.