Peugeot Motorsport’s new Le Man challenger will compete in its first official race next weekend in the 12 Hours of Sebring, the season opener for 2011 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup champions.
That race will also see the Audi R15 bidding farewell in its final race before hands it over to the new R18 closed cockpit. The 908 too features a closed cockpit because that’s what the new rules dictates.The car features a 3.7-litre, HDi turbo-charged diesel engine that makes the series standard 550-hp but its equipped with a particulate filter. That’s what you would also find in a Peugeot 207 city car!
We’re kinda worried that all the health and safety and emission standards would eventually kill motoracing as we know it.
After making its first track appearance on 27 July 2010, and then being presented to the media and general public on 3 February of this year, the new Peugeot 908 will be taking part in its very first race in Sebring (USA) on the 19th March. Team Peugeot Total has entered two cars for next weekend’s race, the first round of the 2011 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup.
The first car, racing as No. 7 will be driven by the 2010 driver team champions, Alexander Wurz, Marc Gené and Anthony Davidson. The second car will carry the No. 8 and will be driven by Franck Montagny, Stéphane Sarrazin and Pedro Lamy.
As part of Team Peugeot Total’s planning and technical development programme, two Peugeot 908s will compete in the Sebring race. “Our main objective in the United States is to gather together as much experience of the new car as we can”, stresses Bruno Famin, Peugeot Sport’s Technical Director. “The 908 is a completely new car and like any new car, we’ll need to work on it and spend time driving it in order, among other things, to develop its reliability and pace. We’ll therefore be following a structured programme, aiming to complete the full 12 Hours so we can rack up plenty of track time and thus acquire valuable information about the car. We also need to learn how to get the best out of the car. This is what we have been doing in private testing, but now we need to do it in race conditions. From both a technical and team perspective, there is still a lot to get to grasps with on all levels”.
SCHEDULE FOR THE 12 HOURS OF SEBRING 2011
Thursday 17 March 2011 (UK time in brackets)
10.15am – 11.15am: Free Practice (3.15pm – 4.15pm)
3.05pm – 4.05pm: Free Practice (6.05pm – 8.05pm)
7.50pm – 9.35pm: Night Practice (10.50pm – 00.35am)
Friday 18 March 2011
10.40am – 11.40am: Free Practice (3.40pm – 2.40pm)
3.35pm – 3.50pm: LMP1/LMP2 Qualifying (6.35pm – 6.50pm)
Saturday 19 March 2011
8.00am – 8.25am: Warm Up (11.00am – 11.25am)
10.30am – 10.30pm: 12 Hours of Sebring (3.30pm – 3.30am)
So Peugeot’s new 908 with the new required 3.7 litre engine will race in the same LMP1 class with last year’s Audi R15 5.3 litre engine. Can someone explain this to me.