They may have lost out to Audi in the Le Mans 24 Hours, but Peugeot returned to the top of the tree in qualifying for the third round of the Le Mans Series at the Nurburgring with Marc Gene and Nicolas Minassian making it three pole positions from three the diesel-powered 908.
Gene posted a best time of 1min 41.867secs during the split session as Peugeot continued to show the form that has enabled them to dominate proceedings so far this season, with the #7 car ending up three tenths of a second clear of the sister car of Pedro Lamy and Stephane Sarrazin. As a further indication of just how much Peugeot has raised the bar this season, Gene's pole time was some three seconds quicker than the time Minassian set last season to take top spot for the Creation Autosportif team.
Once again, no-one was able to get close to the leading pair with the third placed Lola of the Charouz Racing Systems team coming in more than two seconds behind the Lamy/Sarrazin car despite a sterling lap from Stefan Mucke, while the Arena Motorsport Zytek took fourth on the grid as the team looks to avenge the disappointment of missing the Le Mans 24 Hours.
Jonathan Cochet and Alex Frei will start from fifth on the grid in the leading Courage entry, with the first of Henri Pescarolo's entries – the #16 car of Manu Collard and Jean Christophe Boullion – completes the top six.
As one of a number of teams to suffer disappointment during Le Mans, the RML MG Lola bounced back in perfect style as Thomas Erdos and Mike Newton snared the LMP2 pole in eighth position overall, with the lone Barazi Epsilon Zytek of Juan Barazi, Michael Vergers and Karim Ojjeh one place further back in ninth. The third placed LMP2 car, in twelfth overall, was the Bruichladdich Radical with Tim Greaves and Stuart Moseley at the wheel. Le Mans winners Bill Binnie, Allen Timpany and Chris Buncombe will start from sixth in class.
GT1 was headed by the Team Oreca Saleen of Stephane Ortelli and Soheil Ayari as the French outfit aims to return to form following a somewhat low-key performance at La Sarthe, when the anticipated challenge from the Saleen S7R failed to materialise. Ayari's time of 1min 53.062secs was good enough to take top spot in the class by little more than a second from the Team Modena Aston Martin of Christian Fittipaldi and Antonio Garcia – Fittipaldi now continuing in the #59 DBR9 following the departure of Liz Halliday from the programme following the Valencia weekend. The AMR Larbre outfit of Christophe Bouchut, Gabriel Gardel and Fabrizio Gollin completes the top three in the class.
In GT2, Ferrari got the edge on Porsche as Virgo Motorsport snared top spot thanks to Rob Bell and Allan Simonsen, with the duo finishing the session less than a second clear of the Farnbacher Racing Porsche of Dirk Werner, Pierre Ehret and Lars Erik Neilsen. Marc Lieb and Xavier Pompidou will start third in the leading Felbermayr-Proton Porsche.
