All three Peugeots hit early trouble

Peugeot have lost their dominant grip on the Le Mans 24 Hours after all three cars hit trouble within 10 minutes of one another in the third hour of the race, handing the lead to Allan McNish's Audi

Simon Strang Jun 14, 2008, 3:38 PM

The erstwhile leader, the No.8 Peugeot of Pedro Lamy, Stephane Sarrazin and Alex Wurz, was rolled into the garage just after the Austrian climbed into the car.

The car, which dominated the first two hours, has picked up a downshift problem on the gearbox and has already lost four laps to the leaders and dropped out of the top ten.

Within minutes, the No.9 car of Christian Klien was forced to make two pitstops when it received a drive-through penalty for a broken a headlight.

This gave the lead to Jacques Villeneuve in the No.7 car, but the former Formula One world champion was forced to pit with a puncture.

All this drama has given McNish a one-minute lead over Marc Gene, who took over from Villeneuve in that last stop.