Peugeot wasn’t ready to win the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2008, but that changed the following season. The 908 HDi was again the faster car, but crucially for the French manufacturer that was the case in all conditions in 2009. And the tactical and strategic errors that blunted the previous year’s challenge had been erased.

Peugeot went to Le Mans for a third time with its LMP1 turbodiesel and brimmed with confidence. Audi had beaten the French cars at the Sebring 12 Hours, by now part of the Le Mans warm-up routine for both marques, but Peugeot Sport wasn’t worried.

“That year we were ready to win Le Mans,” says Peugeot Sport team manager Serge Saulnier, who endured a torrid lead-up to the race in ’08. “We knew why we hadn’t won Sebring and felt Le Mans would be different.”