Pescarolo: “The best car on the board”

Henri Pescarolo, after the Nürburgring this weekend and Silverstone in three weeks, the LMS season will already be over. Are you already thinking about 2010?
We especially think of the Asian Le Mans Series first. This is a very worrying subject. We had found Chinese partners for the Shanghai race but it was canceled. We therefore hope to compete in Japan but we have to find partners. If this comes to fruition, we hope to run a 908 there, something planned for a long time in the event that Peugeot would not go there, and one or two Pescarolo. But finding partners in Japan, where the crisis in the automobile sector is very severe, is difficult.

The removal of this Shanghai race must be a very embarrassing episode?
It's very complicated and it puts us at odds with the Chinese partners who had trusted us. The removal of this race is incomprehensible. The promotion of the Asian LMS is very poorly done since the possible partners contacted in Japan did not even know that these races existed. That doesn't make things easy. This is a very delicate problem.

After the Asian LMS, how do you envisage the next season?
We must first find funding. The context of economic crisis which makes it difficult for us to find partners will still be present in 2010. We are therefore preparing technically to improve the car but the program will be fixed according to the budget.

Are you still hoping to race a Peugeot 908 HDI FAP in Pescarolo colors?
We are indeed considering racing a Peugeot 908 at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and during the Le Mans Series in 2010. It is the desire of Olivier Quesnel (boss of Peugeot Sport, Editor's note) which renews his confidence in us. But it depends on three things: that Peugeot actually entrusts us with one; that we find the financing, because it is not free; and that the problem of equivalences is resolved.

Even if the equivalences leave the advantage to the "diesels", a "908 Pescarolo" could allow you to play for the win?
The Peugeot 908 would wear the Pescarolo colors but what I defend above all, even before Pescarolo Sport, is Pescarolo as a manufacturer. I want real equivalences to be able to show the potential of our car, which is without a doubt, at equal power, the best car in the field.

Don't you think it's a shame not to find Audi and Peugeot in most of the Le Mans Series events?
It's a shame for LMS, which are not well publicized enough to attract the interest of major manufacturers. It's not a shame for the spectacle because, when we see the Portimao race, where five cars fight on the same lap, we are happy to compete in it. It has a different face than a race where there are cars which, per lap, go five seconds faster than ours...