Photo : Jean Philippe BOYER - ACO/Nikon

Intercontinental Le Mans Cup – Petit Le Mans

Technical Directors of Peugeot and Audi discuss their respective strengths and motivations for this second round of the ILMC.

Bruno Famin (Team Peugeot Total) pictured above: "The duel we saw at Silverstone is likely to keep us holding our breath again at Road Atlanta, this time over a distance of 1,000 miles or perhaps 10 hours, because the races in the USA generally deliver plenty of drama. For one, the safety car and wheel change regulations are different, so we will need to be on our toes throughout and quick to adapt our strategy if necessary. It is this sort of training we have always sought to gain in the USA to prepare for Le Mans. This time round, with the race counting towards the ILMC, we will obviously also be targeting another win in order to extend our early lead."

Ralf Jüttner (Audi Sport Team Joest): "Obviously we want to achieve a better result at Road Atlanta than we did at Silverstone and, above all, finish without any problems. ‘Petit Le Mans’ is a long and difficult race. We’ve been there very often and still have something to make up from last year because we should have actually won that race if it had been run all the way to the end. We’ve got two days of testing and are hoping that we’ll be able to make optimum use of them. Prior to Silverstone we only had one test at the EuroSpeedway - and these two circuits do differ quite a bit from each other. Now we can test on the track where we’ll actually be contesting the race. This should help us take revenge not just for one but two events: for Road Atlanta in 2009 and for Silverstone in 2010."

Peugeot is aiming at a second consecutive victory, both ALMS Petit Le Mans and the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, while a victory for Audi would allow them to come back in contact with Peugeot in the provisional rankings of ILMC. If this were the case, it would also be the tenth success of Audi at Road Atlanta.

Jean-Philippe Doret – Translated by Dave Davies