Introducing the - Peugeot

LE MANS
An emotional
LE manS
ROLLERC
For Peugeot Sport, the 2007 Le
Mans 24 Hours was very much a
learning exercise. Nonetheless,
the team sprang a surprise by
guiding one of its cars to a
superb second place. Here,
three members of that team
give us an inside line on a motor
race unlike any other.
‘A cocktail of speed and stress’
Stéphane Sarrazin, driver, 908 n°8.
Qualifying was a major highlight for me
because I set the pole position time. It was
very important for the whole team to show
that the 908 was potentially quicker than
the Audis. Everything hinged on Wednesday
evening, when rain and a session stoppage
initially prevented us exploiting the car’s
potential to the full. But we felt there would
be an opportunity to do something special
before the session ended. With about 20
minutes remaining, I got back in the car with
the intention of going for an ultra-quick lap. I
was absolutely on the limit – and I even had
a small moment under braking for the first
of the Hunaudières chicanes. But I pressed
on to the end and my no-holds-barred
approach earned the team pole position. I
had a few anxious moments during the race,
too, particularly when my engineers called
me into the pits at 20:00 for an unscheduled
stop. They had noticed that our running
temperatures had increased in one or two
areas, so naturally I pitted. At that point I
didn’t know why I’d been called in and was
wondering whether this signalled the start of
the problems we’d all feared. In fact, it turned
out to be nothing more than a problem with
one of the rear wheel assemblies and it was
fixed in about 10 minutes. I then had to stop
again a few laps later, for the other side of
the car to be changed, and after that we
charged as hard as we could to climb back
through the field. Our efforts carried us all
the way to second place, but the final hour
was very worrying. Fortunately Sébastien
(Bourdais) was able to cross the finishing line,
despite concerns about the oil pressure.
‘A completely mad race’
Christophe Besse, race engineer, 908 n°8
This was my first active involvement in the
Le Mans 24 Hours – and it is absolutely
incredible, a completely mad race. If nothing
else, it lasts almost a week when you take
the qualifying sessions into account. For
race engineers such as me, it is incredibly
demanding because we have to sit on the
pit counter throughout the race – you can’t
allow your concentration to lapse for a
second throughout the 24 hours. And, when
it’s your first time, it isn’t easy to work out
the best way to stave off fatigue. We have
to keep a constant watch on the monitors
and be ready to answer a driver’s question
at any moment. We had two worrying
moments on car n°8 – changing the rear
uprights on Saturday evening and, of course,
the oil pressure problems that made the
final moments of the race so frantic for
us. Car n°7 had similar problems and had
to retire a few hours from the finish, but
I refused to allow that to worry me. Just
because one car had dropped out with such
and such a problem, it didn’t follow that the
other would automatically be affected. Even
so, when car n°8’s oil pressure dipped an
hour before the end, the tension increased.
I stayed calm, though. We were three
laps ahead of the third-placed car, which
gave us plenty of time to keep an eye on
things. At times like these not everyone has
access to the same information – and that
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