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Peugeot clinches easy Sebring 1-2

Peugeot claimed a straightforward one-two finish in the Sebring 12 Hours, having taken command of the event from the start of unofficial testing

The #07 car of Alex Wurz, Anthony Davidson and Marc Gene took victory, just ahead of their team-mates Pedro Lamy, Sebastien Bourdais and Nicolas Minassian.

With Audi unable to gain agreement from Peugeot to race at Sebring with a modified version of its 2009 car that did not quite fit the 2010 rules, the French squad was the only diesel entrant and therefore an overwhelming pre-race favourite.

Sure enough, the two 908s ran one-two for most of the distance - although they had some early scares from Drayson's Emanuele Pirro, who split the Peugeots for a while with a stunning opening stint charge.

Once the Drayson Lola had faded, Peugeot was able to relax and go into testing mode, trying various strategies with its two cars. The lead was swapped during pit sequences several times, before Wurz and Bourdais went into the final two hours just 2s apart.

Wurz managed to pull out a slight gap, but Bourdais was running longer to his final stop. He did not quite do enough to emerge in the lead though, and then a big spin on cold tyres on his out-lap effectively ended his shot at the win.

With Drayson ultimately delayed by alternator problems and damage from contact with Wurz in traffic, Aston Martin Racing had a very quiet run to third place - comfortably faster than the rest of the pack, but unable to stay in touch with the Peugeots.

Highcroft looked assured of LMP2 honours until a wiring problem kept its HPD chassis in the pits for 10 laps with three hours to go.

That left the team five laps down on new class leader Cytosport Porsche and its drivers Klaus Graf, Sascha Maassen and Greg Pickett, and lacking time to do anything about closing the gap.

Dyson's hopes of LMP2 victory were very quickly dashed, its Lola-Mazda spending 80 minutes in the paddock early on having a misfire cured.

Risi Ferrari's Jaime Melo, Pierre Kaffer and Gianmaria Bruni ultimately ended up with a one-lap GT2 cushion over the two Rahal Letterman BMWs, which swapped places on the very last lap when Dirk Muller spun and allowed Dirk Werner through.

Rivals feared that Corvette would be untouchable, but it ruled itself out when its drivers collided in the pitlane as Jan Magnussen was waved out into the path of the sister car. No one was hurt in the dramatic incident, but time-consuming repairs were required.

A bizarre piece of misfortune wrecked Porsche's GT2 chances too. Wolf Henzler put the Falken team into the lead at the start, before dropping back later. The car then shed its right rear wheel twice in quick succession, and on the second occasion the stray wheel clouted the #45 Flying Lizard Porsche - which had been fighting Risi for GT2 victory at the time - as it passed the scene.

That damaged the Porsche's left rear corner, and four laps were lost as the rules did not permit the pits to reopen for repairs until the safety car had successfully collected the leaders - which took an unusually long time on this occasion.

Also making a dramatic exit was the #01 Extreme Speed Ferrari, which caught fire in the final stages while running fifth in class.

Level 5 Motorsports and Alex Job Racing took comfortable wins in the LMPC and GTC categories respectively. While Leh Keen, Juan Gonzalez and Butch Leitzinger led their Job team-mates home in a team one-two-three and dominated the majority of the GTC race, LMPC was close-fought until mechanical problems delayed the #95 Level 5 and Green Earth Gunnar entries, and JR Hildebrand crashed Genoa's car.

That left the way clear for Christophe Bouchut, Scott Tucker and Mark Wilkins to clinch the class victory by 16 laps in Level 5's #55 entry.

Pos  Cl   Drivers                        Car                     Time/Gap
 1.  P1   Gene/Wurz/Davidson             Peugeot            12h00m54.362s
 2.  P1   Lamy/Bourdais/Minassian        Peugeot                + 13.817s
 3.  P1   Mucke/Primat/Fernandez         Lola-Aston Martin       + 3 laps
 4.  P2   Pickett/Graf/Maassen           Porsche                + 14 laps
 5.  P2   Brabham/Pagenaud/Franchitti    HPD                    + 18 laps
 6.  GT2  Melo/Bruni/Kaffer              Ferrari                + 36 laps
 7.  GT2  Auberlen/Milner/Werner         BMW                    + 37 laps
 8.  GT2  Muller/Hand/Priaulx            BMW                    + 37 laps
 9.  GT2  Bergmeister/Long/Lieb          Porsche                + 38 laps
10.  PC   Tucker/Bouchut/Wilkins         ORECA                  + 40 laps
11.  GT2  Law/Neiman/Lietz               Porsche                + 42 laps
12.  P1   Drayson/Cocker/Pirro           Lola                   + 43 laps
13.  GT2  Brown/Cosmo/Barbosa            Ferrari                + 44 laps
14.  GT2  Krohn/Jonsson/van de Poele     Ferrari                + 46 laps
15.  GT2  Magnussen/O'Connell/Garcia     Corvette               + 47 laps
16.  GT2  Beretta/Gavin/Collard          Corvette               + 47 laps
17.  PC   Zugel/Jeannette/Julian         ORECA                  + 56 laps
18.  GTC  Gonzalez/Leitzinger/Keen       Porsche                + 59 laps
19.  GTC  Sweedler/Kapudija/Lueders      Porsche                + 62 laps
20.  GTC  Gonzalez/Diaz/Kelly            Porsche                + 63 laps
21.  P2   Dyson/Smith/Meyrick            Lola-Mazda             + 64 laps
22.  GTC  Rodriguez/Bieker/Friedman      Porsche                + 65 laps
23.  GT2  Robertson/Robertson/Murry      Doran Ford             + 67 laps
24.  GTC  Lewis/Vento/Aschenbach         Porsche                + 68 laps
25.  GTC  Richard/Ende/Lally             Porsche                + 85 laps
26.  PC   Wallace/Sutherland/Hildebrand  ORECA                  + 86 laps
27.  GTC  Curtis/Sofronas/Pilgrim        Porsche                + 87 laps
28.  GT2  Sharp/van Overbeek/Farnbacher  Ferrari                + 96 laps
29.  GT2  Sellers/Henzler/Pilet          Porsche               + 112 laps
30.  PC   Feinberg/Marcelli/Weickardt    ORECA                 + 133 laps
31.  PC   Pagerey/Wong/Ducote            ORECA                 + 135 laps
32.  PC   Tucker/Hunter-Reay/Gue         ORECA                 + 143 laps
33.  GT2  Gentilozzi/Goossens/Dalziel    Jaguar                + 356 laps
34.  P1   Willman/Burgess/Ehret          Lola                  + 367 laps

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