24h Le Mans
Photo : Frédéric GAUDIN - ACO/NIKON
At midday at the Peugeot Hospitality Suite, this years Peugeot Sport conference took place.
Olivier Quesnel, Director of Peugeot Sport introduced the 9 drivers and Vincent Rambaud, the Director General of Peugeot and Bruno Famin, Technical Director of Peugeot Sport.
Olivier Quesnel: " The team has run 15 test sessions since the car was lauched at the end of last year. 2011 has been a successful year for the Peugeot brand with the Oreca Matmut 908 winning at Sebring and the factory team being successful at Spa. After the race the cars returned to the factory at Velizy and ran a test at Le Castellet that lasted for 30 hours which went well."
Vincent Rambaud said:"We are committed to the ILMC this year and to the World Endurance Championship next year where we hope to take on new manufacturers. The team has been preparing for this years race by having team bonding sessions at Toulouse, skiing and snow boarding at Chamonix and then cycling to the track from Chartres, this has united the team into it's current competitive unit."
The team drivers also had an amusing interlude where they took on their mechanics at a pit stop tyre changing competition - not surprisingly the pit crews were quicker!
Bruno Famin: "We will be having a strategy meeting later on today and obviously I can't go into any detail about the teams tactical approach. We have tested in most conditions although because of the dry spring we haven't done much wet weather testing apart from deliberately watering the track."
The drivers all remarked on the good driveability of this years car.
Many improvements had been made including stronger headlights and moves to overcome the problems of visibility within a closed car.
Vincent Rambaud concluded by saying: "This is a total team effort for the Peugeot brand and family, we have 1700 guests coming this weekend and also many from our dealer network from all over Europe and we look forward to having a successful outcome for the team."
Tony Light
Photo: 24 Hours of Le Mans 2011 - the Peugeot pitlane display
