Simon Pagenaud Spa preview

Dress Rehearsal

With the recent official test day for the 2011 Le Mans 24 Hours behind them, Peugeot Sport and Simon Pagenaud are in Belgium this weekend for the Spa- Francorchamps 1,000km, an event which the French driver won in 2009 and 2010. The race will serve as a valuable full-scale dress rehearsal for everyone in order to fine-tune their preparations in a competitive context where the slightest error could prove very costly.

For the first time this year, the French squad has entered three factory Peugeot 908s and all nine drivers will be on duty. It has become something of a tradition for the teams to use the second round of the ILMC to put the finishing touches to their game plan ahead of June’s visit to La Sarthe. That said, neither the team nor the nine drivers will be taking any risks in their bid to score ILMC points. Although the Belgian venue is very different to Le Mans, Peugeot Sport will run set-ups that are similar to those they will employ for the French race. Simon Pagenaud and his teammates will be keen to put in faultless performances in the Belgian Ardennes in order to be as ready as possible for the 24-hour classic which remains the French make’s overriding priority this year.

#9 Team Peugeot Total Peugeot 908: Sébastien Bourdais, Simon Pagenaud, Pedro Lamy

Photo by: DPPI

SIMON PAGENAUD

“Spa-Francorchamps is a superb circuit. For everyone at Peugeot Sport, this race is the ideal way to prepare for the Le Mans 24 Hours in June. We will use this opportunity to continue to optimise the set-up of the new 908. It’s good to be racing directly against Audi once again. I have won the last two editions of the Spa-Francorchamps 1000km, so it’s a venue that’s been kind to me so far…”

-source: simon pagenaud