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Peugeot wins nail biting Spa 24 Hours

A crippled Peugeot 306 just hung on to win after a nail biting finish to the Spa 24 Hours.

After leading for most of the race the works machine of Kurt Mollekens, Frederic Bouvy and Didier Deforney suffered chronic engine trouble in the closing stages of the race. With 25 minutes to go Deforney was leading by three laps when he pitted in a last ditch attempt to solve the problems, but the team could do nothing and sent him chugging on his way.

The car came under enormous pressure from the chasing BMW M3 of Jean Michel-Martin, Thierry Tassin and Frederic Moreau. The 47-year-old Martin, who first won this race in 1979, lapped 50s faster than the leader, and soon brought the gap down.

With just three minutes to go he got back on to the lead lap, but he ran out of time and Deforney brought the 306 safely home. On that last lap he was followed in a rather slow convoy by his Peugeot team-mate and half a dozen other competitors who wanted to get in the chequered flag photo. When Deforney brought the winning car into the pit lane and headed to parc ferme it disappeared in a cloud of steam!

Martin eventually finished less than 2 mins behind. The sister works Peugeot 306 finished third with two famous names - Ickx and Beltoise - in the line-up. In this case it was Vanina and Anthony, daughter and son of the former sportscar legends Jacky and Jean-Pierre. A Dutch-entered Honda Integra R anchored by former BTCC star Peter Kox finished fourth, despite crawling round in the closing laps.

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