Events of the Month

Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium
Spa 1000Kms

Peugeot took home the silverware on the first competitive meeting of its second-generation 908 and arch rival Audi’s new R18 coupe in the Spa 1000Kms. But did it claim the bragging rights ahead of the Le Mans 24 Hours on June 11/12?

The answer to that question is not as clear-cut as the result of round two of the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup in early May might suggest. Alex Wurz, Anthony Davidson and Marc Gene led home an easy-looking Peugeot 1-2, with the best of the German cars a lap back in third. That was because all three R18 TDIs failed to come through the six-hour event cleanly. Each lost time as a result of on-track dramas.

There is evidence that one or more of the Audis would have been in with a sniff of victory but for those incidents, which ranged from off-track excursions, body damage and, most bizarrely in the case of Rinaldo Capello, knocking on the pitlane speed limiter out on track. Tom Kristensen, who shared his Audi with Allan McNish and Capello as usual, was closing on the second-placed Peugeot driven by Nicolas Minassian just ahead of the five-hour mark.

The eight-time Le Mans winner was just 14 seconds in arrears and due to save on a couple of lap’s worth of fuel at his final stop when a slow puncture halted his charge. The Joest team opted to change damaged rear bodywork in the unscheduled stop, which also meant the car would need a late splash-and-dash, which is why it finished off the lead lap.

The Audi may have been a match for the Peugeots at this point in the race, but it wasn’t consistently so through the event.

Peugeot Sport technical director Bruno Famin suggested that the 908 looked after its tyres better than the R18.

“It seems that our car was faster over the second part of the second stint on the tyres,” he explained. “It’s not really a surprise, because it is one of the key points of the car.”

Kristensen reckoned Audi’s problems might have been “temperaturerelated”. “We had the pace at times,” he said, “but we were not truly competitive over the full race.”

Capello, for instance, struggled initially, only to pick up pace at the end of his double stint on the same set of Michelins. “I could not get any bite from the front,” he said. “What was really odd was in the last 10 laps of my stint I got back the front grip.”

The Peugeot drivers appeared to be able to exploit the full performance of the 908 no matter what. A case in point was Wurz’s charge from 12th on the grid (the result of a red flag in qualifying) and into the lead in the space of 20 laps.

Gene reckoned the events of Spa still point to a tight race come June.

“They have pace, but for whatever reason they weren’t able to turn it into lap times today,” he said. “It looks like one of the closest Le Mans of the past four or five years. Someone has always had an advantage in the past, but I don’t see that this year.” Gary Watkins