Diesels grab first 7 slots in first Le Mans qualifying session, Peugeot on top

It looks like the Peugeot and Audi diesels will again be the cars to keep up with at Le Mans this year. During Wednesday night's first qualifying session for this weekend's 24-hour-race, the four Peugeot 908 and three Audi R15+ LMP1 cars grabbed the top seven positions on the grid. The seventh place Audi was nearly two full seconds a lap faster than the next-best gasoline-powered cars, the two Aston Martin-Lolas.

The #3 Peugeot of Pedro Lamy, Sebastien Bourdais and Simon Pagenaud grabbed the provisional pole position with a time of 3 minutes 19.711 seconds, 3.8 seconds per lap faster than the quickest Audi in fifth place. As always at Le Mans, fuel economy will play a critical role as time lost in the pits at Le Mans can be very difficult to make up on the track. The race starts at 3 pm CET on Saturday, with two more qualifying sessions today.

[Source: Le Mans]