Sebastien Bourdais has praised the efforts of his Peugeot team after the French marque finished second, third and fourth in the 2011 Le Mans 24 Hours.
Bourdais, along with Simon Pagenaud and Pedro Lamy, drove the #9 Peugeot to second place, just 13.854s behind the race-winning Audi of Andre Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer, Marcel Fassler.
Although it was a considerably better result than last year, when Peugeot had the quickest cars but none of them lasted the distance, there was inevitably some disappointment that Peugeot had failed to secure a win in one of France's most prestigious sporting events.
"This year we were beaten by a stronger team than we were," said Bourdais. "After 10 or so hours, when we went onto the soft tyres during the night, we were very strong. Maybe if the whole race had been like that we could have won!
"They [Audi] managed to develop a very reliable car which is a bit quicker than ours. We don't have the same resources as our rivals, so after what happened last year [when all the 908s retired] our target was to build a car that would finish. There can be no reproach to anyone at Peugeot because the car did exactly what it was built to do. It was reliable from start to finish; just at the end they were a little bit quicker than us."
Teammate Pagenaud added: "It was a titanic battle and we didn't expect it to be quite so tight. We were on the pace but we lacked that little bit extra. Especially at the end. I would have preferred to be the one in front being chased."