Peugeot Sport announced their lineup yesterday for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, confirming that Montagny would join them for the second year in a row. He’ll also turn up for a couple of prepatory events, the 12 Hours of Sebring, and 1000 Kilometres of Spa. I’ve never heard of either of these events but am now very excited about them. FKM’s team mates for Spa and Sebring have been announced as follows:

Oops. Turns out that when I said this year was his best result, I was wrong. And my only excuse is that clearly I cannot read. To make amends for my error, here is the full run-down of Franck’s achievements at Le Mans. Year Team Result 1998 Courage 5th 1999 DAMS DNF 2000 DAMS 9th 2001 Oreca DNF 2002 Oreca 6th 2005 Oreca 4th 2006 Pescarolo 2nd 2008 Peugeot 3rd For the last few years, there’s been a nice trend of the results going up, for Franck, but it appears this year was not to be.

Franck did an amazing job. He started second, and at one point was driving so fast he could catch the leaders at four seconds a lap. He overtook the front runners to lead the race at one point, and then made the big mistake of handing the car over to Klien. A couple of laps in, Klien through the car in the gravel. Still, we have to be impressed that our guys managed to recover enough to finish third.

Peugeot continued their fine form from the first round of qualifying, and took the first three spots on the grid. Franck’s car is second, behind Stephane Sarrazin, and ahead of Marc Gene. The finishing times were over three seconds quicker than Audi. The full qualifying results can be viewed here. Unfortunately, Montagny’s team mate Ricardo Zonta was having a go in the car when he was involved in an incident. The Peugeot was hit by another car and smashed into the barriers.

First qualifying for Le Mans 24 Hours took place last night (thanks to Andrea in the comments for the heads up). Our Peugeot boys were on top form, taking the top three spots, with main rival Audi taking the next three: Pos Class Drivers Team Car Time Gap 1 LMP1 Lamy, Sarrazin, Wurz Team Peugeot Total Peugeot 908 3:18.513 – 2 LMP1 Montagny, Zonta, Klien Peugeot Sport Total Peugeot 908 3:18.

Peugeot turned up for the test day this past weekend, with the Sporting Director Michel Barge, summing up the day for the team: “We have prepared extremely thoroughly for this monumental competition. We have raced at Sebring and in the three rounds of the 2008 Le Mans Series, including Spa where we fielded two complete driver line-ups, not to mention an extremely busy programme of testing since the flag came down on the 2007 Le Mans 24 Hours.

As I mentioned briefly in the previous post about Franck’s successful outing at Long Beach, it looks like FKM had a confirmed Champ Car drive for 2009. Before the race, he said: It was disappointing to have a deal three weeks before the season, and then nothing. But we’ve kept very close with Forsythe and we have a very good relationship. Maybe there will be a chance to do IndyCar with them next year, I hope so.

I can only apologise for not posting this news immediately, it is definitely worth a blog post or two! In his one and only Champ Car race, Franck managed to finish 2nd with an inspired drive. But let’s start at the beginning. It appears that Franck had a confirmed Champ Car drive, which is why he lined up on the grid in Long Beach this past weekend. This was his debut for the Forsythe team, but as the series no longer exists, and the team are not going to participate anymore, it was also his last Champ Car appearance.

I’ve been away this week, and missed out on all the action of last weekend, which is typical because Franck was… both good and bad. We had a moment to celebrate when he hit the top of the time sheets in the final Free Practice session, just ahead of favourites Switzerland. Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps 1 Franck Montagny France 1:35.470 – 23 2 Neel Jani Switzerland 1:35.556 +0.086 19 3 Edoardo Piscopo Italy 1:35.

It looks to me like Franck is going to debut and finish up his Champ Car career in one and the same race. According to this story (link retired), Franck is one of 13 drivers confirmed to appear at the Grand Prix of Long Beach. I was not aware of this, and I’m finding it hard to find out any more information. If anyone else knows more, let me know!