Saturday's joint ILMC and Le Mans Series race turned into a surprising Peugeot dominance after they were significantly slower than Audi R18 trio and completely wrong strategy in qualifying. All three factory Peugeots started from mid-field or from the back in case of no.8 but fortunately, all their drivers moved ahead very carefully and within a few laps the three Audis were more or less closely followed by Peugeots no.7 and no.8. Very early in the race the Zytek no.20 was ahead of the private Oreca Peugeot but then it was soon Audi-Audi-Peugeot-Peugeot-Audi-Peugeot-Oreca/Peugeot. One Audi spun in the early laps so it was well mixed and balanced between Audis and Peugeots almost from the beginning. It was set for a exceptionally interesting race. Peugeot no.7 then overtook second running Audi and seemed to be faster than any of the Audis. During the first hour Alexander Wurz in the Peugeot no.7 took the lead but all three Audis followed: Bernhard in no.1, Lotterer in no.2 and McNish in no.3. Bourdais in no.9 was fifth and a bit further back was Montagny in no.8, which was gridded in a row 14.
Oreca car visited garage just three minutes before the end of the first hour so additional positions of the TOP10 were divided in petrol LMP1 cars as follows: Rebellion Lola no.12, Pescarolo no.16, Rebellion Lola no.13 and Zytek no.20, which was really quick only in the first two or three laps. LMP2 class was led by Zytek no.41 ahead four Orecas 03 mixed with lone Lola spider 2011 (no.39).
Not all cars had such happy start of the race. Three cars started from the pit lane (Oak Pescarolo LMP2, Luxury Ferrari no.59 and black Zytek no.23). Even worse was Gulf Aston Martin GT2, which was not ready at the race start. They appeared on the track much later only to try a couple of laps and returned to the garage. They repeated this procedure twice more but at the end of the second hour the problem was solved and the car they ran entire distance despite desperately last.
We had two non-starters. The written-off HPD of team RML was joined by lone LMP1 Oak Pescarolo. So there were 53 participants in the race, by far the biggest number in the race 45-year history. There was over 40 finishers, we have yet to wait how many of the cars would be actually classified but expect also the largest number in the race history.
During the third hour Audis lost time for one reason or another and all Peugeot appeared in the lead. Only Audi no.3 was in the lead lap while Audi no.1 was lap behind and no.2 further lap back. Gene/Wurz/Davidson in no.7 were then leading until the finish except for a short periods during pit stops. But Audi never returned back to the top.
By the way, some cars were entered in ILMC and some into the Le Mans Series. In case the factory cars we had 4 cars in ILMC and no.3 and no.9 in LMS. During the final stages of the race Peugeot no.9 dropped from second overall to third. So first two were ILMC Peugeots, then LMS Peugeot no.9 was in fight with LMS Audi no.3 and the ILMC Audis were further delayed. Not sure how many the factories were really interested in this LMS battle but it was the most interesting part of the race at the top. Unfortunately for the Peugeot squad the no.9 had a front suspension failure (at least it looked like that), was moved into the garage for repairs and all Audis moved easily ahead. In the end also factory Pescarolo and better of Rebellion Lolas (no.12) could finish the race ahead of the Peugeot no.9. All they were running for the Le Mans Series points. Oreca Peugeot managed to finished 10th after losing seven laps during the early race troubles.
Only other LMP1 car in the finish was the black Zytek no.23, which was pitted since fifth hour and then sent to track only to take the chequered flag.
LMP2 class turned into a dominance of new Orecas. Two new Lolas had not a good day: open no.39 retired after some decent performance early in the race, while closed no.33 from the USA was slow and then lost rear suspension in Eau Rouge moving into the barriers. This was the reason of the only safety car period in the race. It was generally a good race without too many dramas and accidents, unlike in practice or in the last few seasons. It surprised us a bit considering practice accidents, large number of starting cars and having several quick LMP1 at the end of the pack on the grid. But it was really a very pleasant surprise and hopefully this trend would continue in coming races. Only car really attacking four Orecas in LMP2 was the older Acura, running among top 5 for the first part of the race. Later two Orecas were delayed so the class battle turned into a fight between TDS Racing no.46 and Boutsen Racing no.45, who were mainly in the lead but crossed the line second in the class. HPD of Straka racing settled third in the second part of the race. It was followed by a real surprise in the class: Very lucky team RLR with a very old MG Lola ran very well and regularly during entire race and the result was fourth in class and 14th overall.
Generally we think it was a great race and Audi team have a lot of to think about before the Le Mans 24 Hours as they were about 3 seconds slower in the race then in the practice while Peugeot was same quick in the race as in the practice sessions and Pagenaud beat the race lap record several times in the last hour and his time 2:03.699 is way better then Audi's best 2:04.781. During all practice sessions but warm up it was quite opposite. The Le Mans race may be extremely interesting this year as Audis and Peugeots are well matched in overall speeds. But who knows how it turns out in June. Hopefully even the Aston Martin factory can finally show some kind of competitiveness.
