H+1 : Peugeot catches the Audis and leads at Spa

The first hour of the Spa-Francorchamps 1000 kms provided some thrilling racing on the circuit in the Ardennes. Despite Audi’s triple in qualifying, Peugeot fought back and overtook the R18s to lead the race.

With the three Audi R18 TDIs in the first three places and the three Peugeots stuck in the pack, the start promised to be exciting. Right from the green light the German cars battled for the lead among themselves. Timo Bernhard in no. 1 hit the front but was soon overtaken by Andre Lotterer in no. 2 while Allan McNish in no. 3 spun losing precious seconds. The Peugeots scythed their way through the traffic back to the front.

After fifteen minutes, Alex Wurz in the no. 7 Peugeot 908 was up in third place on the gearbox of the no. 1 Audi, followed by his sister car, the no. 9 908 driven by Sébastien Bourdais.

While McNish tried to make up for lost time Wurz tried to take first place from Lotterer while fending off the attacks of Bernhard.

With 43 minutes gone the Austrian took the lead before the first round of refuelling stops from which he emerged in first place in front of Bernhard and Lotterer. A bit further back came McNish, Bourdais and Franck Montagny.

The first hour in LM P2 saw a ding-dong battle between the Oreca 03-Nissans driven by Soheil Ayari (Signatech-Nissan) and Mathias Beche (TDS Racing). This continued till the refuelling stops began after which Tom Kimber-Smith (Greaves Motorsport Zytek Z11SN) came out in front.

In LM GTE Pro, Ferrari dominated led by Jaime Melo (no. 71 AF Corse F458 Itallia) and Rob Bell (No. 66 JMW Motorsport F458 Italia) who passed the Italian-entered car after the pit stops.

Nicolas Armindo in the no. 67 IMSA Performance Matmut Porsche 997 GT3 RSR), Friday’s pole setter, led comfortably in LM GTE Am before handing over to Raymond Narac who went off after an hour’s racing. This put the no. 68 Porsche entered by the Felbermayr-Proton squad in first place.

Finally, in Formula Le Mans Niciolas Marroc in the Hope Racing FLM-Oreca 09 immediately went into a lead which he opened up in the first hour.