As the clock wound down to the final hour, Audi circulated on their own as the Peugeot Sport team scratched their heads and wondered how the race had gotten away from them. (Photo: Marshall Pruett)

Which explains why Audi’s entire team—from Dr. Ulrich, to the drivers, never looked spooked and never let a worrying word loose in the media prior to the race. This must have emboldened Peugeot even more in their quest to win by setting a distance record at La Sarthe.

They were duped before the race and ‘Rope-a-Doped’ during it. As Ali’s corner man Ferdie Pacheco said to ESPN about foreman’s defeat, “It's Ali out-thinking a guy totally erroneous in his thinking. And then closing the deal."

Another aspect of Peugeot’s odd choice to race a 24 hour race as if it was a 3 hour sprint race was their revealing of their outright pace. They’ve had the measure of the R10’s in the LMS this season, but never have they put on such a wanton display of power and speed. If there was a time to keep their true potential masked until it was needed—if it was needed, Peugeot showed Audi exactly how high the bar has been set, and how far their new Audi R15 must go to catch and surpass the 908.

Like Ali in the 'Rumble in the Jungle' and Audi at Le Mans this year, the rest of the world might have been surprised by their wins, but they never questioned whose hand would be raised at the end of the bout. (Photo: Marshall Pruett)

From analyzing and comparing their respective sector times to reviewing the aero and drivetrain configuration changes on the 908 from Sebring to Le Mans and the final LMS round to Le Mans, Audi now has a road map to follow.

The battle for Le Mans supremacy in 2009 will be an intriguing one. Peugeot was supposed to reveal their hybrid 908-H to the press prior to the race, but their PR staff would only confirm those plans to show the car had been cancelled in the weeks before the race.

A newish car for 2009 with hybrid technology would have been a wonderful plan had they scored a win this year, but sticking with the current 908 and improving all of the areas they’d highlighted in 2007 is the smartest call to make.

Still, Peugeot likely squandered their best chance to beat Audi when they misfired and miscalculated in every category this year. They let their egos stand in the way of common sense and kept them from employing the same basic formula Audi has used to score seventh win from eight tries this decade.

And despite a new R15 on the horizon and all it will be expected to do, Audi still ‘owns’ Peugeot when it comes to strategy. Audi knows it, and Peugeot knows it. Part of me would love to see Audi bring an R8, R10, and R15 to Le Mans next year just to see if Peugeot can cope with the challenge. It’d have them scratching their heads for sure.

Twenty five years after ‘The Greatest of All-Time’ knocked out George Forman with a better game plan in the ‘Rumble in the Jungle,’ Peugeot’s run out of excuses for falling into Audi’s trap over. We’ve seen that if given a choice, Audi will choose brainpower while Peugeot scrambles for horsepower, but if their French rivals don’t wise up and do their homework for a change, we might be witnessing another ‘Slaughter at La Sarthe’ in 2009.


Marshall Pruett is Automotive and Sportscar Racing Editor for SPEEDtv.com. Pruett grew up at "Pruett's Olde English Garage," his father's shelter for abused foreign cars, and spent his childhood being dragged across the West Coast to help with his dad's amateur racing exploits. Pruett spent twenty years working in various open-wheel and sportscar series, retiring from active duty in 2001. And in case you were wondering, no, he isn’t related to Scott Pruett.

He can be reached at

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, SPEED, FOX, or NewsCorp.



The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED