Sunday, 27th April 2008

French squad dominates Monza qualifying.

Peugeot will be confident of continuing its 100 per cent winning record in the Le Mans Series at Monza after locking out the front row of the grid at the Italian circuit ahead of the second round of the year.

Having set the pace throughout free practice, Nicolas Minassian stormed to pole position at the wheel of the #7 car by half a second from the sister car of Pedro Lamy.

Minassian had rounded off the free practice session with a time three seconds faster than the team's 2007 pole position and he then secured top spot for the race in qualifying with a stunning lap of 1m 31.470s.

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"It's easy when you have a very good car!” he said. “We worked well with Marc Gene and the team during the free practice sessions. Now that the car is reliable, we can explore the full potential of the 908, the car is really fast, the engine, chassis and brakes are fantastic."

After giving his tyres a chance to cool down over a slower lap, Pedro Lamy stayed out to have one final attempt at taking pole in the #8 car and while he improved his best time to 1m 31.957s, he still had to settle for second fastest.

"We are a little faster than the Audis, but we still need to improve a bit,” he said. “Nicolas had a better set-up, and despite a last attempt I wasn't able to threaten his time."

Team manager Serge Saulnier said he was pleased with the outcome of qualifying with the Audis having struggled to match the pace of the Peugeots during the session.

"Overall the outcome today is very positive, because when we got to Monza we could have expected the gaps to the Audis to be smaller than at Barcelona,” he said. “They remain quite substantial and I hope that this will give us a little room for manoeuvre during the pit stops or if there are safety car periods if there are any incidents in the race.

“Nicolas and Marc did a very good job in free practice, Nicolas was well-prepared for qualifying and he made the most of three clear laps, unlike Pedro who was slowed in traffic and had to have an extra attempt. All this work is encouraging for the race.”

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