Coming to America: Peugeot to compete in 12 Hours of Sebring

Filed under: Motorsports, Peugeot

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]

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