The new Peugeot 908 was quickest in a close-fought unofficial test day for this weekend's Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.
Only one of the latest-generation Peugeots ran today, but the Franck Montagny/Stephane Sarrazin/Pedro Lamy car set the quickest time of the opening day in the morning session with a 1m47.678sec. That beat Audi's Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas and Mike Rockenfeller by 0.347sec, while the new LMP1 version of the HPD got off to an impressive start with David Brabham taking the car to third in only its second test. The second Audi, ORECA Peugeot and CytoSport Lola-Aston Martin were also within 1.1sec of the Peugeot's pace in fourth to sixth places.
Audi hit the front in the afternoon, the No. 2 R15 Plus of Dindo Capello, Allan McNish and Tom Kristensen quickest with a 1m47.919sec despite a late trip off the road. The HPD was up to second this time, between the two Joest Audis, with the Rebellion Lola-Toyota fifth ahead of the Peugeot.
The No. 55 Rahal Letterman Lanigan BMW was fastest in GT in both sessions, though the competition was predictably close. Half a second covered the two BMWs, the No. 03 Corvette and the No. 45 Flying Lizard Porsche in the morning, while in the afternoon there was only 0.462sec encompassing the GT top five, with Extreme Speed's new Ferrari 458 fifth behind the No. 55 BMW, the No. 03 Corvette, the No. 56 BMW and Flying Lizard's No. 45.
Signature's ORECA-Nissan dominated LMP2 all day.
Tomorrow sees two more shorter test sessions before official practice starts on Thursday.