On Saturday October 4th at 11.15 am local time at the fabulous Road Atlanta circuit the flag will fall to start another classic sportscar endurance event.  In its short life Petit Le Mans has become one of the great races in North America and this year promises to be another exciting event. At the front of the field it will be another Peugeot vs Audi battle with Peugeot fighting to gain revenge for the result last June at La Sarthe.  They will be joined in the mix by the fast LMP2 class runners from Porsche, Acura (Honda) and Lola.

Unfortunately in GT1 the sole class competitors will be the two Corvette C6.Rs with Aston Martin unable to attend and recreate the Le Mans battle between the two marques.  The class will be no less competitive however as the crews of the No 3 and No 4 cars renew their season long rivalry!

The race is over 1,000 miles with a 10 hour time limit and therefore Oliver and Olivier will again be joined in No 4 by Max Papis.  The three drivers took the class victory in last year's event (pictured left) and will be looking to repeat the feat in 2008.  Last year's win brought 'the Ollies' the driver's championship but this year their teammates Jan Magnussen and Johnny O'Connell have a commanding 23 point lead.

Traffic is always a problem in these long endurance events and the Corvettes will be hoping for a trouble free run to the finish.  Olly confirmed "Petit Le Mans is another 'red letter' event on the calendar.  It's one we all want to win.  Also Olivier and I want to build on the win last time out at Detroit.  The season hasn't been good to us up until then and hopefully Detroit signalled a change in our fortunes.  It's great to have Max back with us again, we all work well as a team and we really want to deliver a good result.  I'm really looking forward to the weekend." 

Petit Le Mans starts at 11.15 am local time or 4.15 pm UK time.  There is live coverage in the UK on Motors TV starting on Saturday at 4.00 pm.

Earlier last month Olly looked forward to Petit Le Mans in his latest video podcast and you can access his podcast directory by clicking here.