The Peugeot RCZ 2.0 HDi FAP is the „Lord of the Ring“: For the second time in a row, the coupé race car has impressively demonstrated its endurance qualities. The crew made up of drivers Michael Bohrer, Jürgen Nett, Stéphane Caillet and Alexandre Prémat took the chequered flat at the 39th ADAC Zurich 24h Race as best Diesel driven car and won class D1T with an advance of three laps. The quartet finished the classical endurance race into 54th overall position amongst the 201 starters.
The successful project with close-to-production cars at the Nordschleife completes the Le Mans programme with prototypes entered by the French car manufacturer. Peugeot is one of the biggest manufacturers of Diesel engines and has successfully demonstrated its competence in both disciplines.
The two race cars entered by the team Peugeot RCZ Nokia took the start from positions one and two in their class. After three hours race time, the drivers Alexandre Prémat, Jonathan Cochet, Bruce Jouanny and Stéphane Caillet with start number 201 were first in their class. They defended their lead until 05:29hrs when Prémat had a collision with another car in the passage Fuchsröhre and had to retire. The sister car was then shown in the class lead and finished the race successfully as class winner. The distance covered after 130 laps at the 25.378 kilometres long combination of the Nürburgring Grand Prix Circuit and the Nordschleife after 24:00:45.597 hours came up to 3,299.14 kilometres. The average speed of the Diesel sports coupé was 137.392 km/h.
Happy faces in the Peugeot squad
„A fantastic success“, waid a happy Alexandre Prémat. “That was a fantastic race and a totally new experience for me. Even though I do not have a lot of experience in racing with front-wheel driven cars, I adapted quickly to the Peugeot RCZ. There was a lot of traffic on the track throughout the whole race, you have to be extremely attentive all the time.”
„Our ambitious goal was to repeat our success from last year“, added Michael Bohrer. “We had organised our race very well and wanted to treat car and material with care. It is a pity that our sister car did not make it. You can, however, never feel sure at the Nürburgring 24h Race.” The only problems encountered by the winning team was a loose underbody in the first quarter of the race as well as a damaged turbo pipe on Sunday morning. “If I look at the many problems the other teams had, our problems really were a bagatelle”, said Jürgen Nett. “Both of our cars were extremely reliable throughout the whole race.”
Experience gained at the „Ring“ integrated in the series development
The entry of the two Peugeot RCZ 2.0 HDi FAP were realised together by Peugeot Automobiles S.A. and Peugeot Germany, in cooperation with the Peugeot Centre of Development based at Belchamp. A lot of experience gained in the development of the series production were thus integrated in the endurance racing project. On the other hand, experience gained at the 24 Hours Marathon Race shall also be integrated into the series production. Compared to the 2010 version, the car was further developed regarding brakes and weight so that the 200 HP strong Diesel sports coupé became about 15 seconds faster per lap.
The ambitious project could however above all be realized through the engagement of the Peugeot partner, as for example the lubricant supplier Total. Tyre partner Kumho and technical partner Segula contributed in the suspension set up and in finding the right balance of the car which was one of the main keys in the success of the project.
