Peugeot leads Petit Le Mans practice

Date published : 01 Oct 2010 - 14:49:16

Peugeot struck the first blow in the battle for this weekend's Petit Le Mans, ending the free practice sessions with a clear advantage over arch-rival Audi.Heavy overnight rain meant the first session was held on a damp Road Atlanta circuit, while a huge downpour all-but washed out the second session. This meant the best dry running took place during the night session and the one-hour pre-qualifying run-out.In both cases it was the #08 Peugeot of Pedro Lamy/Franck Montagny/Stephane Sarrazin that set the pace, with Lamy ultimately setting a best mark of 1m07.723s. The sister car of Anthony Davidson/Marc Gene/Alexander Wurz was involved in an incident with a slower car during the night running, but showed no ill-effects by lapping second quickest, just under half a second slower.The Audi of Marcel Fassler/Andre Lotterer/Benoit Treluyer set the pace in the first session, and was just a tenth off the sister car of Rinaldo Capello/Tom Kristensen/Allan McNish in the final session. It's been a difficult start to the event for the #7 car, with Kristensen writing off the original tub in pre-race testing and then Capello having a sizable shunt in the dying seconds of final practice.In P2 there was very little to separate the Porsche RS Spyder, HPD and the Lola Mazda, with the Klaus Graf/Sascha Maassen/Lucas Luhr Spyder just edging it in the final session.