About 200 kilometers west of Paris 1440 minutes of racing ended this Sunday afternoon at Le Mans with Dindo Capello, Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish in the #2 Audi Sport North America only 4 minutes and 31.094 seconds ahead of the #27 Team Peugeot Total of Nic Minassian, Marc Gene and Jacques Villeneuve.

Audi and Peugeot diesels took the top six spots in the 76th edition of The 24 Hours with much drama and battling strategies. The dry track of the first half of the race favored the incredible power of the Peugeots and Jacques Villeneuve was looking good to add a Le Mans victory to his F1 championship (1997) and Indy 500 win (1995). But rain is never far away this time of year in France and fourteen hours into the race the teams had to make a decision whether to go with slicks, intermediates or wet compound. The correct choice of tires, plus two fewer pits stops than the Peugeot HDi V12, kept the #2 Audi out front after taking the lead over night.

GT1 was won by Aston Martin for the second year in row. David Brabham, Antonio Garcia and Darren Turner took the #009 Patrón Highcroft Racing DBR9 across the line ahead of the #63 and #64 Corvette Racing factory entries. Corvette vows to be back to its winning ways in 2009.
 
Risi Competizione had to be tremendously gratified, after last year’s disappointment, by stomping on the competition for a solid win in GT2. The Ferrari F430 GT, piloted by Mika Salo, Jaime Melo and Gianmaria Bruni, led for most of the 24 hours. Early on they swapped places with the Felbermayr-Proton Porsche team, but the Virgo Motorsport Ferrari came up to join them at the front until the Virgo engine ceased to function when they had under three hours to go. A well earned GT2 victory for Risi.