Autoblog

Click image for a gallery of race photos from the '08 12 Hours of Sebring

The 2008 running of the 12 Hours of Sebring took place yesterday, officially kicking off the sports car racing season. In case you recorded the race and haven't gotten around to watching it yet, we've placed the recap after the jump. Suffice to say, it looks like this year's ALMS and Le Mans competition should be both exciting and unpredictable.

Follow the jump for the full Sebring rundown.

[Source: ALMS]

Click above for high-res gallery from this week's 12 Hours of Sebring practice

An epic battle is shaping up for this weekend's running of the 12 Hours of Sebring. Audi versus Peugeot. The R10 TDI versus the 908 HDi. Diesel versus diesel. This will be the first and perhaps only time that these two teams race on American soil, though the contest will be repeated many times in the European Le Mans Series this season. Since Monday, Audi and Peugeot have been battling for the best lap times during practice sessions in preparation for this weekend's endurance race at Sebring Raceway, and Peugeot got the upper hand on both Monday and Tuesday. Audi, which is fielding two cars to Peugeot's one, finally fought back today posting the fastest lap time of the week thanks to driver Dindo Capello, who ran a 1:45.491, just 0.017 seconds faster than Stephane Sarrazin in the Peugeot 908.

But Audi and Peugeot in the LMP1 class should be wary of focusing too much on each other, as there are other entrants that could spoil their fun. Marco Andretti, for instance has been blisteringly fast in his Andretti Green Racing Acura ARX-01b, setting the second fastest lap time overall on Tuesday. As we learned from watching the LMP2 class beat up on Audi last year, Le Mans racing is anyone's game. The nature of endurance racing, however, favors fuel economy, and therefore the diesel-powered R10 TDI and 908 HDi should have the advantage. There will be plenty of great racing in the GT1 and GT2 classes as well, with Aston Martin squaring off against the Corvette Racing Team and Porsche taking on Ferrari, respectively. Stay tuned for race results probably late Saturday or early Sunday, and check out some spectacular images from this week's testing in the gallery below.


[Source: ALMS]

Stephane Sarrazin pilots the Peugeot 908 HDi to a record 1:42.801 lap time at Sebring. (Photo courtesy of ALMS.)

Race on Sunday, sell on Monday. That's the time-honored, though oft-refuted mantra used by motorsport's patrons to justify the enormous expense of top-class motor racing. It might be a bit of a stretch for Peugeot, however, who announced today their US debut at this year's 12 Hours of Sebring, the first race in the 2008 American Le Mans Series, now entering its tenth season. Peugeot doesn't even import to the United States, but this just goes to show how single-minded the French team is in its pursuit of victory over its diesel rivals at Audi.

According to ALMS chief Scott Atherton, "It is no secret that Peugeot's ultimate goal for 2008 is to once again claim victory at Le Mans, and there is no better proving ground than Sebring." Peugeot evidently agrees. The decision to compete at Sebring comes after last month's test session where Stephane Sarrazin set a record 1:42.801 lap time at the Florida track behind the wheel of the Peugeot 908 HDi, beating the previous lap record set by Audi's Marco Werner last year by a full two seconds. It warrants repeating in case you missed it: two full seconds. That ended up being motivation enough for Peugeot to ship the car on over again to compete in the actual race, where Sarrazin will share driving duties with Nic Minassian and Pedro Lamy. We'll see how Peugeot does against Audi and the rest of the field when the 56th Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring gets underway on Saturday, March 15.

Press release after the jump. Thanks for the tip, Kamal!

[Source: ALMS]

Despite racking up its eigth victory in a row at last weekend's 12 Hours of Sebring, Audi is reportedly considering dropping out of the American Le Mans Series. Rumors of Audi yanking its unbeatable R10s from competition in the U.S. have been swirling ever since last season when race organizers began changing rules to slow down the Audis and give their competition a hope in hell of winning. Those revisions didn't work and the Audis kept winning.

ALMS organizers also instituted "special" rules for the Audi in last weekend's running of the 12 Hours of Sebring, forcing the R10s to run with a smaller fuel cell that held 81 instead of 90 liters of diesel. Changes like this slow the Audi R10s enough to bring them within spitting distance of the LMP2 class that is incredibly competitive this year thanks to the arrival of Acura on the scene. From Audi's perspective, the temporary rule changes instituted at Sebring apparently were not in line with what it considers fair racing. As such, the German automaker is reviewing where it stands with the American Le Mans Series.

We would hate to see Audi pull out of ALMS, even though it dominates every single race it enters. Ideally, ALMS should be recruiting more competitive LMP1 contenders, or perhaps it could institute a new class of diesel-powered racers called LMD1. We hear the French might be interested.

BTW – FTW

[Source: Yahoo Sports Germany via German Car Blog]

Click on the photo for a high-res gallery of the 2007 Audi R10 TDi

See that? It's the rear end of a 2007 Audi R10 diesel-powered ALMS racer. The 2007 American LeMans Series kicks off this weekend with the storied Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring, and judging from the first day of test sessions on Monday, this view will become quite familiar to the rest of the field.

During the first day of test sessions yesterday, one of Audi's new drivers, Tom Kristensen, beat his teammate's record setting qualifying lap from last year by a full 0.7 seconds, while fellow teammate Emanuele Pirro was just behind and almost a second ahead of the fastest LMP2 Porsche of Andy Wallace.

Last year, Audi's pair of diesel-powered R10s were unbeatable, reaching the highest platform of the podium in each one of the eight races the cars contested, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the only race of the eight not part of the ALMS Series.

[Source: American LeMans Series]