Spa: the first Audi-Peugeot duel

This first 2010 confrontation between the official Peugeot and Audi teams will have been a long time coming. The Germans were not on the starting grid for the 12 Hours of Sebring, just like Peugeot Sport was not on that of the 8 Hours of Castellet.
This last event, however, saw the R15 plus compete for the first time against a Peugeot 908, in this case the one entrusted to the Oreca Matmut team. Unfortunately a problem with the air jack ended the duel too quickly.

This weekend, on the Belgian track of Spa-Francorchamps, no less than three Peugeot 908 HDi FAP and three official Audi R15s will make the trip, i.e. as many candidates for victory, to which we can add the lioness from the Oreca team.

At the wheel of the Peugeot n°1, we find the two winners of the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2009 Marc Gené and Alexandre Wurz, associated with newcomer Anthony Davidson, the sister cars, bearing numbers 2 and 3, being respectively entrusted to the trios Nicolas Minassian-Franck Montagny-Stéphane Sarrazin and Sébastien Bourdais-Pedro Lamy-simon pagenaud.

On the Ingolstadt side too, heavy artillery was brought out. The eight-time winner of the Le Mans classic, Tom Kristensen, will return to competition, fully recovered from his injury. The Dane will, as usual, be associated on the No. 7 with the Italian Rinaldo Capello, and the formidable Scottish imp Allan McNish. No. 8 will see three new arrivals take turns within Dr Ullrich's team. Frenchman Benoit Tréluyer will share the wheel with German André Lotterer, seen last year on the R10 Kolles, and Swiss Marcel Fässler, who competed in a few races for the official Audi team at the end of 2008 in ALMS. Finally, the Germans Mike Rockenfeller and Timo Bernhard, as well as the Frenchman Romain Dumas, will take their place in the seat of the R15 wearing the number 9.

The battle in the Belgian Ardennes therefore promises to be fantastic in every way, pitting the six candidate cars declared for victory in the Sarthe on June 12 and 13. And even if at Peugeot, we declare that we do not want to take any risks six weeks before the flagship meeting of the season, we should know more about the potential of the cars. Untouchable last year, will the 908 be threatened by the R15 Plus? The first performance of Dr Ullrich's new weapon at Le Castellet was convincing. The car ran like clockwork, setting top-notch times. But it's difficult to learn from it.

At Oreca, we also hope to be able to do well, with a 908 having to be identical in every way to that of the factory. If Olivier Panis and Nicolas lapierre have already taken the wheel of the car in the race, this will be a great first for Loïc duval. Fast during testing, the Honda Super GT driver should have no trouble getting into the rhythm of the best.

Behind the diesels, it is a three-way battle that we should witness, in the absence of the Oreca AIM and the Zytek 09S from the Mansell family. La Lola-Aston Martin Signature, with his trio Vanina Ickx-Franck Mailleux-Pierre Ragues will have a lot to do to overcome the two Lola Rebellions of Jean-Christophe Boullion-Andrea Bellichi and Nicolas Cheers and Neel Jani.

In LMP2, the HPD ARX-01c should once again prove intractable. But in the long term, the Pescarolo-Judds of OAK Racing could well have a say.

From one unit at Paul-Ricard, the GT1 category increases to seven in Belgium. Note the first outing this year of the Luc Alphand Aventures team with a Corvette entrusted to Julien Jousse, Stéphane Grégoire and David Hart, as well as the arrival at Matech Compétition of the Swiss Jonathan Hirshi.

Finally, the GT2 category displays the same face as for the first round. The only big news comes from the presence of two BMWs with top-flight crews: Jorg Müller-Dirk Werner-Uwe Alzen and Andy Priaulx-Augusto Farfus-Dirk Müller. But the M3s should have a hard time getting involved in the fight for victory, which should once again concern Porsche et Ferrari (with notably Jean Alesi and Giancarlo Fisichella), and why not Aston Martin, whose AMV8 showed a very interesting level of performance in the Var.