Sarrazin blames Capello for tangle

The French manufacturer lost both the drivers' and constructors' titles in the 2008 Le Mans Series finale, despite winning four of the five rounds and entering the last race leading both points standings.

With the sister Peugeot of Nicolas Minassian and Marc Gene having already crashed out, the resultant safety car period caused the field to bunch up, and early leader Sarrazin, lying third, attempted to retake second from Capello around the outside of Copse. But instead he clipped the Audi R10 at the apex of the corner and both cars spun into the barrier.

The damage caused to the 908 HDi FAP took eight laps to repair, which effectively cost Peugeot the constructors' championship.

"The No.1 car had some traffic in front, I think," Sarrazin told autosport.com. "He couldn't accelerate, I accelerated very early and overtook him. I was in front of him completely, it wasn't like 50-50.

"I turned, and when I started to turn he pushed me like crazy. He didn't decelerate, and I am sure he braked later than usual. So he did it by choice.

"Maybe [it was my fault] because I decided to overtake him. Okay I did a mistake because I crashed, but that was because he stayed inside and he stayed flat. It was very unfair.

"But what could I do, stay behind and maybe overtake him later and the same mistake could have happened."

Capello refused to accept any blame for the crash and indicated that he felt Sarrazin was the cause, adding that he had done everything he could to avoid it given that he was committed to the inside line when he entered the corner.

"If you look at the pictures I would say 101 percent it was not my fault," he said, "and if you check my telemetry I always tried to brake to avoid it because I did not expect him to make such a sharp manoeuvre at such a fast corner."

After a season where they have enjoyed such an enormous performance advantage and dominated the LMS, Peugeot's motorsport chief Michel Barge admitted to autosport.com that it was difficult to accept they had missed out on three major titles (including the Le Mans 24 Hours).

"It is frustrating, but this is racing," he said.

"The car was fast, we had good reliability," he added. "We were on the front row in qualifying. There was a little aggressiveness in this race and it was not easy, well today that is a shame for Peugeot."

Minassian's accident also cost him and Gene their chance of winning the drivers' championship, which instead went to Audi's Mike Rockenfeller and Alexandre Premat. The Frenchman clipped the rear of a GT2 Porsche exiting Maggotts after 75 minutes of the race, and after getting briefly airborne, he crashed heavily into the Hanger Straight wall.

"I crashed the car, it can only be me," said a distraught Minassian afterwards. "Whatever situation it is you need to avoid it in endurance, I didn't, so all I can say is a big apology to Peugeot. I am very sorry about it."