Audi, Peugeot vow to attack

Monitoring speed in the interests of car preservation has been a common strategy at Le Mans in the past, but according to four-time winner Emanuele Pirro, no-one can afford to - nor should need to - hold back anymore.

"In all fairness, you always have to go as quick as you can here," said the Audi driver. "The times when you have to save the car are gone.

"Now, there is nothing wrong you can do to the car by pushing to the limit, unless you go off the track, or onto kerbs or something like that.

"The tyres are strong enough, the engine is not an issue ... if something breaks, it doesn't break because you have been pushing too much.

"When you hear a driver saying 'oh, it's quick, but I am pushing too much and taking a lot of risks', this is bullshit. There is no reason not to go to the maximum, basically."

Pirro pointed to his second victory in 2001 as an example, saying that if the team had not gone all-out to build a lead, they would not have been exposed when the car developed problems late in the race.

"You need a safe margin," he explained. "You always have to be more and more ready in case you have to change something in the car.

"In 2001, when we won the race, three hours before the end, we had to change the rear end of the car. If we didn't have a nice margin, we would have lost the race. There is no slowing down here."

Over at the Peugeot camp, Pedro Lamy echoed his rival's thoughts.

"The cars we have today, the car won't survive just because you go slower," said the Portuguese driver. "The gearbox, everything, we cannot save a lot in the car, and if we push more it will not make more problems. We push as much as we can.

"At the beginning of the race it will be tough and I think everyone will push, but the most important thing is to finish, and the people who will finish without problems will win."

Stephane Sarrazin, who will share the #08 Peugeot 908 with Lamy and Sebastien Bourdais agreed that the French team faced a major challenge from Audi, but was less certain about what they might do to counter it.

"I think Audi will push in the race," he said. "We don't know yet what we will do, we need to speak with the boss! We need to manage the car.

"We've never finished 24 hours. We are improving all the time, the team is improving all the time, but Audi has a lot of experience."