Minassian returns to Road Atlanta - September 20th 2009

Minassian and Lamy team up in Atlanta

Having finished second in last year's Petit Le Mans, Nicolas Minassian returns with Peugeot to race for victory. Last year Peugeot entered just one 908HDi FAP into Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta. That car driven by Minassian and Stéphane Sarrazin finished second, just 4.512 seconds behind the winning Audi. This year Peugeot are sending two machines in preparation already for the 2010 Le Mans 24 Hours following their one-two finish earlier this year.

Since the cars crossed the line at 3pm on Sunday 14 June at Le Mans, the Peugeot Sport team has been hard at work. The winning 908 HDi FAP, and its drivers, have celebrated their victory at: the headquarters of Peugeot Automobiles; at the Goodwood Festival of Speed; at the company’s showroom on the Champs Elysées, Paris; at Sochaux, one of the production facilities of the PSA Peugeot Citroën Group; and at Sabadell, where Spain honoured its driver Marc Gené. They have also taken part in road shows and displays in various countries, including at the Frankfurt Motor Show. On top of all this, there was a test session at Mugello in late August plus the day-to-day business at the Peugeot Sport workshops in Vélizy, where the first task was to strip the car and analyse every component after the incredible race at Le Mans.

“We only disassembled cars 7 and 8, because number 9 was in pretty high demand!” observes Peugeot Sport Technical Director, Bruno Famin. “Apart from the brakes and clutch, we could have done a few more hours of racing! It was extremely satisfying to see the 908’s level of reliability. There are some interesting statistics, too. In three years, we have entered eight works Peugeot 908 HDi FAPs in the Le Mans 24 Hours: two in 2007, and three in 2008 and 2009. Seven made it to the finish, and five of them finished on the podium! Out of a total of 192 hours of racing, Peugeot has completed 191 hours of running because we’ve only experience one retirement, in 2007 when car number 7 retired an hour before the finish!”

The team that took second here last year

Reliability won’t be the only critical factor in the race at Road Atlanta. Our experience in 2008 demonstrated that tactics, driver commitment and handling the traffic are also decisive factors. Last year, Peugeot entered a single 908 HDi FAP in the hands of Stéphane Sarrazin, Nicolas Minassian and Christian Klien; it finished second, just 4.512 seconds behind the winning Audi.

“Road Atlanta (10 hours) is the longest endurance race in the world after Le Mans (24 hours) and Sebring (12 hours),” points out Peugeot Sport Director Olivier Quesnel. “It is therefore a useful exercise for the entire team. The primary objective is to enrich our knowledge of endurance in a number of key areas: strategy, traffic, reliability, the competition, etc… This is especially true because all of these factors are significantly accentuated at this unusual venue.”