FRENCH DISSECTION; Peugeot aims to take Audi apart at Le Mans.

Byline: GARY WATKINS

So says Audi driver Allan McNish of the battle of the turbodiesel heavyweights, scheduled for June 14-15. The rematch between Audi's R10 TDI and Peugeot's 908 HDi might be one of the most eagerly awaited sports-car confrontations in years, yet evidence indicates that Peugeot holds a clear margin of superiority.

The 12 Hours of Sebring in March-where Peugeot was about two seconds per lap faster than Audi-gave an early indication of the 908's pace compared with the R10's. The three subsequent rounds of the Le Mans Series in Europe, and then the Le Mans Test Day on June 1, served to show that Audi cannot maintain its sequence of Le Mans wins on pace alone.

The Peugeot is more aerodynamically efficient and marginally more powerful, and, perhaps most crucially, it has better weight distribution. It is routinely at least a second a lap faster in race conditions than its rival around a three-mile track in the Le Mans Series. How many seconds that translates into around the 8.5-mile Circuit de la Sarthe remains to be seen, but it is unlikely to be the four-second margin Peugeot enjoyed at the test. Peugeot will, however, have a clear advantage, and not just in qualifying.

Peugeot has worked hard at being able to race just shy of its qualifying pace, Audi's strong suit for so long.

"Everything we have done is to make sure that our race pace is as close as possible to our qualifying pace,'' said Peugeot Sport team manager Serge Saulnier, who admits that his team was surprised at Le Mans last year by Audi's ability to do just that. "We are confident we can race near our full potential.''

It also appears that the 908 is now reliable. Peugeot believes it is on top of the hydraulic problems that interrupted its race at Sebring. The team also identified the driveshaft trouble it encountered during the Monza LMS race in April as an assembly problem. At the same time, one should not view the R10 as the bulletproof machine that its predecessor, the R8, was. Witness the suspension, turbo, alternator and braking glitches it has encountered in races so far this ...