What an unexpected result for Audi huh? What many expected for Peugeot to win the coveted 24 Heures du Mans in 2010, Audi made it a perfect 1,2 & 3 finish on the top step of the podium and Peogeot could do nothing about it. All their hard work and testing were apparently in vain when none of their cars made it to the finish line...

So what exactly happen to Peugeot then? Well, the first of the works Peugeot team got into an early retirement when the #3 Peugeot had the suspension ripped from the tub, making it nearly impossible to repair and ended their race. Then the #2 Peogeot retired with what was an engine failure (it was said to be a turbo related issue, not sure about that) about halfway though the race with the #1 Peugeot and #4 Team Oreca Matmut (using the same Peugeot 908 btw) both encountering similar troubles later in the race. God it must have been awful for them to swallow that result. After such a good performance last year and some convincing results this year in some of the previous races this year, guess nobody had predicted this.

As for the other race winners, it was Strakka Racing in the HPD ARX-01C that won the LMP2 class, Larbre Compétition in the Saleen S7 for LMGT1 (which is sadly gonna be the last) and Felbermayr-Proton in the Porsche 911 GT3-RSR for LMGT2. Although I wish I could highlight more about the race, but I guess I just have to end here for now. Not sure how next years regulation will be like or what team and cars will appear but all in all it is definitely something to look forward to!!!

Official Site
Planet Le Mans
Speedhunters coverage

The race finished just about an hour ago or so, and its a little sad to say that I missed nearly half of the race! A lot of things happened in the race, and this years 12 Hours of Sebring was sadly not as good as last year. With Audi wasn't able to race Sebring, it was clearly gonna be Peugeot race to win with neither the Aston Martin Racing nor the Drayson Racing could do anything about it in their petrol cars. (seriously, the diesel were always gonna be faster than the petrol with the current regulations) Then again, what lacked in P1 & P2 was made up by the new entries in GT2. Porsche, Ferrari, BMW, Chevrolet, (and less likely) Jaguar were in a shot for the GT2 class win.

Other than that, there were also 2 new classes introduced to fill up the grin in ALMS with the Le Mans Prototype Challenge (LMPC or Formula Le Mans in Europe) and the GTC class (which is maily composed of Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars). But of course I'm not gonna talk much a lot about those 2 new classes and just concentrate on P1 and GT2. So as the race finished it was obviously Peugeot taking the win, with Alexander Wurz, Marc Gene, & Anthony Davidson driving the #07 Peogeot 908 HDi FAP crossing the line first with the #08 Peugeot of Sebastien Bourdais, Nicolas Minassian, & Pedro Lamy finished some 13 seconds behind in 2nd and the final spot of the podium was taken by Adrian Fernandez, Stefan Mucke, and Harold Primat in the #007 Aston Martin Racing Lola B09 60.

Things couldn't be any different in GT2 as Risi Competizione won yet again in the #62 Ferrari F430 driven by Jaime Melo, Gianmaria Bruni, & Pierre Kaffer having a comfortable win ahead of the #92 BMW E92 M3 of Dirk Werner, Bill Auberlen, Hermosa Beach, & Tom Milner and the #90 BMW E92 M3 of Dirk Mueller, Joey Hand, & Andy Priaulx. So what happened to the Corvette and Porsche then? For the Corvette Racing team, they just had a nightmare of a race with gaining a lot of penalties during the race and the crash in the pits didn't help much either. Porsche was on the other hand was just struck by bad luck when the #17 Falken Porsche lost its right rear wheel and made contact with the #45 Flying Lizards which was in 2nd during that time. Oh what would the race have been like if Ferrari had run into problems as well in the race.

Whatever it is, the race was still quite enjoyable to watch despite the demise of the GT1 class as well as the slightly smaller grid compare to the years past. The American Le Mans series will still be one of the most interesting endurance race series to watch. How will the Le Mans Series and the FIA GT1 World Championship will compare to ALMS is anybodies guess...

It was really unexpected to be honest. I thought when the race was red flagged it would resume later on or something (when the race was red flagged I just went straight to bed) and when I woke up this morning to read the news on the results I found out the race didn't continue after it was red flagged lol. Surely it was not the way that everyone wanted to race to end, but with the rain being really heavy and almost the entire track was flooded it just could not be avoided...

Even though I didn't get to watch the entire race it was expected to be quite a race with Peugeot and Audi at it again out at the front of the field. Throughout the race it was between the 2 manufacturers and when the track did dry up (before it rained again that is) Peugeot manage to outpace the Audi and snatch the top spot of the podium before the rain got really heavy and brought the race to a premature end.

For the full coverage of the race weekend you can view it here:
Petit Le Mans Coverage on Speedhunters

Well done Peugeot, all those hard work just to get their car competitive at Le Mans has finally paid off. Took them 3 years of development and racing and getting a 1-2 after 24 hours must really be something special for them. This also marks the last time that Peugeot won at Le Mans 16 years ago, which surprisingly has the Brabham family in the winning car....

Sorry for the late post here people, my internet connection went a little cuckoo yesterday and that meant I cannot go online the entire time. Stupud ISP screwed me up big time now, and just hope the internet stays a little stable now so that I can stay online for much longer. Also that means I just lost the will to type the race report to be honest, although I have a lot to write on my mind about the race but lets just face it, it is gonna be pointless isn't it?

Anyway, never mind. A summary of the race is that Peugeot won the race with a car that was developed 3 years in the making while Audi debut their new R15 at Le Mans with just very few testing and only 1 race done back in Sebring earlier this year which meant there was bound to be tons of problems for them to encounter during the race. Aston Martin did a splendid job bringing the #007 car back home in 4th overall, and was the best petrol powered LMP1 cars in the field. Not gonna touch on any other classes in particular or how the race progressed throughout the race, just read the rest of the report in this links:

lemans.org
planetlemans.com

You know its that time of the year again. The Le Mans 24 Hour race is about to begin tomorrow, with 55 cars from 4 classes racing around the Circuit de la Sarthe is going to be awesome.....

As always in Le Mans these couple of years it will be the battle of the diesel powered LMP1 cars of Audi vs. Peugeot at the forefront of the field, and odds are Audi might win this one just as they did many years before. But with Peugeot in their third year with the 908 as well as a change of team personnel this could be the year Peugeot could snatch the winning streak away from Audi. With their performance in Sebring anything to go by, it could very well be an even battle with the Audi. Hopefully they did sort out some of the minor problems they had at the start of the year and have a reliable package with them this weekend. Another worthy mention is also that Aston Martin Racing has entered 3 cars into the LMP1 class to celebrate their 50th anniversary of their Le Mans win back in 1959. Although not as fast as the Audi or Peugeot, they are pretty much the "best of the rest" in the petrol powered cars. But who knows, anything can happen in the race so we all just have to see and find out.

Don't think I have to mentioned the other classes as much since they are not as highly anticipated as the LMP1 class but it is sad to see the GT1 class only having 6 cars in race, as compared to previous years before. Who knows what GT1 will be like next year, as most of the manufacturers has moved to either to the LMP class or GT2, GT3 and even GT4 this could mean the end of the GT1 class as we know it now. Not sure what the major changes are gonna happen in GT1, or maybe they will bump up the GT2 cars into GT1 and GT3 into GT2 and so forth, or change the GT class completely.

As for qualifying, it was the combination of Stéphane Sarrazin, Sébastien Bourdais and Franck Montagny that brought the #8 Peugeot home in first position, followed by the #1 Audi and the #7 Peugeot. You can view all the qualifying positions for all the classes here

For any more info or coverage you can always visit these sites for the latest news:
Official Le Mans site
Radio Le Mans
Speedhunters Coverage of Le Mans

Well I know this is a little pointless to post here, but it is quite interesting to say the least. The idea is to make a special livery (in this case, an art car of sorts) for the Dunlop sponsored JWM Ferrari F430 GT and the winner will get his/her design to be on the car during the Le Mans 24 Hour race as well as presenting to the world motoring press and the rest is, oh I don't know, self-explained. Just think about it, how cool is it to have a livery that you designed to be raced at Le Mans!!!?

Okay, maybe it does sound like fun but the odds and chances of being a winner (or even a semi-finalists, let along even qualified for the entry) is going to be humongous. Worse still, this is only available in certain parts of Europe (Great Britain, Portugal, Spain, France or Germany) which means people other than those mentioned are not eligible to participate. But who cares though, I will try and do some designs on my own for fun and try posting it here and on deviantART for fun. Who knows, maybe someone will notice it and take my idea and make it his design. Even if the odds of that happening is almost next to infinity, (yeah, that is "if" I actually will do it) it will be surely be something even if it actually happened.... (and by then, I will s**t bricks I tell you....)

So if anyone is interested in just trying it out (or even trying to participate) here is the link to their website:
Dunlop Art Car Competition

There is only like 10 days left to enter, so hurry up and design something if you want to enter!!!

As if it was only natural for them, Audi have yet make another historical win at Sebring International Raceway. Having battled against Peugeot for much of the day and being chasing the 908 for most of the afternoon, the R15 came alive in the dark and the remarkable combination of the #2 Audi R15 drivers of Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen and Dindo Capello was just the stuff of legends. McNish drove the last stint incredibly fast and consistent and in the end the Peugeot just had the overall victory slipped out of its hand. Got to feel sorry for Peugeot, they have the fastest car and probably a solid driver line up and yet they still couldn't get that victory that they wanted so much. Oh well, with Sebring over they just have to focus on Le Mans now and get their act together.

Anyway, beside the Audi R15 winning on its debut this also marks the 9th overall victory out of 11 starts at Sebring, as well as this being Tom Kristensen's 5th overall victory at Sebring. Also even though Audi didn't set the fastest lap at Sebring (it was set by Sebastien Bourdais in the Peugeot) Audi did cover the most distance covered in the race with 1,417 miles. The #7 Peugeot of Franck Montagny, Sebastien Bourdais and Stephane Sarrazin finished 2nd and the #1 Audi of Mike Rockenfeller, Marco Werner and Lucas Luhr finished 3rd. I'm not going to write the report of the other classes nor do I want to spoil everything else so If you want to know more about the race you can always check out americanlemans.com for the full report:

ANOTHER DEBUT, ANOTHER AUDI VICTORY AT SEBRING