Peugeot's folly was one of arrogance and ego in their flawed Le Mans game plan. The Peugeot Sport team didn't want to just beat Audi; they wanted to crush them in front of the partisan crowd. (Photo: Stephen Colbran) » More Photos

What makes things even worse is that Audi didn’t have a bag full of tricks, much less a stockpile of alternate strategies and scenarios to tackle Peugeot’s massive attack. As Hausner said, Peugeot had forced Audi into a corner and left them with only one option: to “hope for rain and prepare the cars for this.”

Ali, recognizing he didn’t have the strength or stamina to keep pace with Foreman’s brute strength, used the sweltering African heat to his advantage, and enticed Foreman into punching away round after round as he laid against the ropes. Ali christened his fight plan the ‘Rope-a-Dope,’ named for the power-sapping tactics he’d devised once he’d assessed the superior strength of his challenger, his poor odds, and the conditions the fight would take place.

Trade the heat for rain, and Audi pulled out Ali’s twenty-five year old trick to undo all of Peugeot’s speed, potential, and bottomless Le Mans budget. The 908’s had the R10’s on the ropes throughout practice and qualifying, but Audi’s race was a different matter.

Just as Ali laid against the ropes waiting for Foreman’s strength to wane, Audi laid in wait hoping Peugeot would rely on its brute strength and speed to crush them--to win the race going away. They wanted them to keep punching—to try and lap their three R10’s—to try and win on pure performance.

Audi's lack of ego and cool focus on out-thinking their bigger, faster rival helped deliver Tom Kristensen's incredible 8th Le Mans victory. (Photo: Marshall Pruett) » More Photos

And that arrogance—Peugeot’s need to posture and win big in front of the partisan crowd was their complete undoing.

Had they focused primarily on aerodynamic improvements, their overall Le Mans efforts this year would have made sense. The easier a car cuts through the air, the less power and fuel it needs to propel itself forward. In a sport of endurance, being able to endure—to go farther between fuel stops, has long been the foundation of success. But this is another area Peugeot ignored in their power-mad penchant to beat Audi.

This manifested itself in the form of engines that were significantly stouter than what Audi brought to the match. It also forced the 908’s to stop more often for fuel—one lap earlier than the R10’s most of the time.

Brad Kettler, car chief for the #3 Audi entry, went one step further in explaining Audi’s plans to use superior fuel mileage to help move to the front once the showers started. “We did not have a really good read on Peugeot’s fuel consumption. All of Audi’s engines are efficient, and we worked hard on the cut off point for the last lap to make sure we knew how far we could go and use every last drop of diesel. We also used different rain maps in the ECU with lower boost limits for the drivers to select, and that increased our laps per tank in the wet more than the Pug…”

Audi’s Hausner also saw Peugeot’s ‘power over efficiency’ plans come to the fore once the race started. “They probably ran the engines a bit more rich (which means more power with a diesel) but brings higher internal loads. We were on the limit with the pistons and couldn't go this route. We tried our best and didn't run lean just for the sake of it.”

This speaks to Peugeot’s decision to re-work and push their engine output for Le Mans; while their twin-turbo V12’s withstood the extra stress, the folly of their quest for extra power obviously resulted in a need for extra fuel. There’s a reason such a hyper aggressive approach to winning Le Mans with an ‘F1’ mentality has never succeeded, and purposely racing thirsty 908’s for 24 hours isn’t a strategy they’ll likely adopt again.