WEC
Peugeot domination remains in first qualifying
Peugeot has proven to be unbeatable in the first qualifying for next weekend's 24 Hours of Le Mans. By being the only driver to break the 3:20 mark, Sebastien Bourdais drove the No. 3 Peugeot to the provisional pole. Because of bad weather ...
Edited: Jun 11, 2010, 3:12 AM
Copy link
Share on Viber
Peugeot has proven to be unbeatable in the first qualifying for next weekend's 24 Hours of Le Mans. By being the only driver to break the 3:20 mark, Sebastien Bourdais drove the No. 3 Peugeot to the provisional pole. Because of bad weather conditions expected for Thursday evening, this provisional pole was already celebrated by the Peugeot team as pole.
#3 Peugeot Sport Total Peugeot 908: S?bastien Bourdais, Pedro Lamy, Simon Pagenaud.
Photo by Eric Gilbert.
Early in the session, Nicolas Lapierre surprisingly drove his costumer Peugeot to the first spot with a large gap between him and the Peugeot works teams. A couple of laps later the Frenchmen had to park the No. 4 car behind the will with fuel pick-up problems, which brought their day to an early end.
Lapierre's time stayed on top of the time sheets for a long time, until Sebastien Bourdais improved the fastest time with 1.5 seconds and became the first driver to break the 3:20 mark. No one at the track had an answer on Bourdais' time, which put the Peugeot of Bourdais, Simon Pagenaud and Pedro Lamy on provisional pole.
The Peugeot of Bourdais will provisionally share the front row with the No. 1 car of Team Peugeot Total, with Alex Wurz, Marc Gen? and Anthony Davidson behind the wheel. This Peugeot was after 13.6km of racing only six thousandths of a second faster than the No. 2 Peugeot (Nicolas Minassian, Franck Montagny and St?phane Sarrazin).
Even though the Oreca Peugeot had to be parked early in the session, its fastest time eventually was fast enough to keep all Audi's behind. The lack of pace at Audi was one of the biggest surprises of the day, the fastest Audi was the No. 9 car with a 3.8 second gap on Peugeots provisional pole.
As expected, the fight for the LMP2 went exclusively between the HPD's of Highcroft and Strakka Racing. Earlier in the day Highcroft had beaten Strakka in the first free practice, but in qualifying Strakka took revenge with Jonny Kayne putting a 3:36.168 on the clocks.
Highcroft Racing drivers David Brabham, Marino Franchitti and Marco Werner weren't able to threaten this time and had to take a provisional second P2 position on one second distance of the pole sitter.
The final grid will be set in Thursday with a second qualifying starting at 19:00 / 7 pm CET and final qualifying at 22:00 / 10 pm CET.
See also: Aston Martin claims GT1 provisional pole
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Next article Toyota Le Mans prototype has support from ORECA for 2012
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Marino Franchitti
Di Grassi, Franchitti to race for Mazda at Petit Le Mans
IMSA
IMSA
Road Atlanta
Di Grassi, Franchitti to race for Mazda at Petit Le Mans
Marino Franchitti seeking new U.S. opportunities
IMSA
IMSA
Marino Franchitti seeking new U.S. opportunities
Franchitti gets Mazda prototype seat for Sebring 12h
IMSA
IMSA
Sebring
Franchitti gets Mazda prototype seat for Sebring 12h
More from
Strakka Racing
Paffett, Nielsen to complete IGTC season with Strakka
GT
GT
Paffett, Nielsen to complete IGTC season with Strakka
Rowland to drive Strakka Mercedes in Suzuka 10 Hours
Endurance
Endurance
Suzuka 10 Hours
Rowland to drive Strakka Mercedes in Suzuka 10 Hours
Barrichello to contest Spa 24 Hours in a Mercedes
GT World Challenge Europe Endurance
GT World Challenge Europe Endurance
24 Hours of Spa
Barrichello to contest Spa 24 Hours in a Mercedes
Latest news
Oliver Bearman explains why Haas’ 2026 F1 car is ‘hitting its ceiling’
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
United States GP
47 min
Oliver Bearman explains why Haas’ 2026 F1 car is ‘hitting its ceiling’
Toprak Razgatlioglu going through a "difficult time" after shoulder surgery
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP
Malaysian GP
1 h
Toprak Razgatlioglu going through a "difficult time" after shoulder surgery
Yet another DNF for Cadillac’s Valtteri Bottas: ‘Sometimes we don’t quite understand it’
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
United States GP
2 h
Yet another DNF for Cadillac’s Valtteri Bottas: ‘Sometimes we don’t quite understand it’
Diogo Moreira: “From what we saw in the Austria test, Honda could fight for MotoGP title next year”
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP 2 h
Diogo Moreira: “From what we saw in the Austria test, Honda could fight for MotoGP title next year”
Feature
Discover prime content
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe