Peugeot has the cards in hand

It was the Oreca team which had the best start of the weekend since the Panis/Stone achieved the best time in the first free practice session. Extremely rare, Gene/Wurz's 908 was within the same thousandth of a second! The start of this weekend in Le Mans Series therefore promised a great fight between the cars. The second Oreca, that of Senna/Ortelli, ranked third in the session, one tenth from the leading duo.

The second free practice session dedicated the Pescarolo Judd of the Bouillon/Tinseau tandem, which had set the fourth time in the first session. All the cars were much more efficient, and the Lola Aston Martin returned to the forefront with second, third and fourth positions. THE Peugeot 908 got bogged down in seventh (Pagenaud/Minassian/Klien) and ninth (Gene/Wurz/Brabham) places.

The qualifying session shows the Peugeot's return to first place. Simon Pagenaud sets the reference time, the best of the three sessions, in 2:01:056, with the second Peugeot of Wurz in the same tenth (2:01:082). Bad operation for the Oreca team, with the Panis/Lapierre duo only thirteenth. But the Ortelli/Senna pair climbed to a good fourth place, lying in wait behind the Lola Aston Martin of Primat/Ramos/Turner.