Peugeot takes controversial win

Franck Montagny and Stephane Sarrazin triumphed in a thrilling 1000km event that could have been won by either the Peugeot 908 HDi or the Audi R15 TDI driven by Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish.

The former crew came out on top in controversial circumstances after the second Peugeot with Sebastien Bourdais at the wheel appeared to deliberately back up Kristensen while Sarrazin was in the pits for the final time.

It was unclear whether or not Sarrazin would make it out of pits in front of Kristensen, but a slow lap by the delayed Bourdais with the Audi on his tail was crucial in allowing the winning Peugeot to exit the pits in the lead. Bourdais then kept Kristensen behind him until the winning Peugeot was five seconds up the road.

McNish described Peugeot's tactics as a "bitter pill to take at the end of a great season of racing." He also criticised a shambolic late-race safety-car period that resulted in Sarrazin's deficit to the Audi coming down from more than half a minute to just 12 seconds.

Bourdais and team-mate Simon Pagenaud looked odds-on to win at Zhuhai until the incident that brought out the safety car. Bourdais tangled with the Felbermayr-Proton Porsche driven by Martin Ragginger with 44 laps to go, resulting in rear-end damage that required three laps to repair.

The Peugeot was running second, 16s behind Kristensen, at the time, but would almost certainly have moved to the front because Bourdais and Pagenaud were on a conservative fuel strategy that would have resulted in the car making one pitstop fewer than its rivals.

Bourdais' incident meant he and Pagenaud finished down in fourth behind the second Audi driven by Rinaldo Capello and Romain Dumas, which was running a different set-up to the second-placed Audi.

The OAK Racing Pescarolo finished fifth and first in LMP2 after a run interrupted only by braking issues late in the race. The Porsche 911 GT3-R Hybrid driven by Jorg Bergmeister and Patrick Long ended up sixth ahead of all the GT2 runners.

The Schnitzer BMW team ended a difficult season in Le Mans-rules racing on a high. Jorg Muller and Dirk Werner claimed a clear GT2 class victory aboard the team's solo M3.

Pos  Cl    Drivers                    Car                Time/Gap
 1.  LMP1  Montagny/Sarrazin          Peugeot            5h35m39.053s
 2.  LMP1  Kristensen/McNish          Audi                   + 4.826s
 3.  LMP1  Capello/Dumas              Audi                  + 49.302s
 4.  LMP1  Bourdais/Pagenaud          Peugeot                + 3 laps
 5.  LMP2  Nicolet/da Rocha/Lafargue  Pescarolo-Judd        + 26 laps
 6.  GTH   Bergmeister/Long           Porsche Hybrid        + 27 laps
 7.  GT2   Muller/Werner              BMW                   + 30 laps
 8.  GT2   Lieb/Lietz                 Porsche               + 30 laps
 9.  FLM   Zacchia/Zhang/Lee          ORECA                 + 31 laps
10.  GT2   Bruni/Vilander/Melo        Ferrari               + 33 laps
11.  GT2   Ragginger/Ried/Roda        Porsche               + 40 laps
12.  GTC   Lee/Yoong/Marsh            Audi                  + 40 laps
13.  GT2   Ehret/Quaife/Kirkaldy      Ferrari               + 41 laps
14.  LMP1  Mitsuyama/Wakisaka         Courage ORECA YGK     + 42 laps
15.  GT2   Giroix/Goethe              Lamborghini           + 45 laps
16.  GTC   Ma/Beche                   Aston Martin          + 60 laps
17.  GTC   Richard/Li                 Audi                  + 61 laps
18.  GT1   Bornhauser/Groppi/Lamy     Saleen                + 62 laps

Retirements:

     LMP1  Drayson/Cocker             Lola-Judd          141 laps
     GTC   Watts/Meins/Yu             Audi               168 laps
     GT2   Westbrook/O'Young          Porsche            119 laps
     GT1   Iiri/Sekiguchi/Yuya        Lamborghini        10 laps
     GT2   Goossens/Gentilozzi        Jaguar             10 laps