LE MANS, Fr — Rain is the focus of most of the talk on a day when not much more was going on at the Circuiit du La Sarthe — the 8.469 mile historic here in France.

The weather has been cloudy with short rainy spurts and equally short sun bursts as teams have worked in the garage area on getting their steeds prepared for the first day of practice on Wednesday. But it would seem that the weather has trumped all other conversations — and it is anyone’s guess as to the weather for race.

Most, however, are expecting at least some rain for this race and the weatherman seems to point to this Le Mans being a wet one. None of the weather guessers seem to be in total agreement as to the weather for the 80th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, this year a part of the Automobile Club O’uest (ACO) / Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) World Endurance Championship (WEC) series. This is seen in team preparation in the pits with teams showing their train tires in readiness during pit walk-throughs.

The short odds for the overall victory lie with the Audi team with four cars here — two of their new R18 diesel e-tron flywheel hybrid vehicles and two of their R18 Diesel TDI cars. They will likely face stiff competition from the Toyota TS030 hybrid which even Audi drivers have admitted has surprised them with its speed.

There are also a passel of other petrol based LMP1 cars who will vie for a podium spot, more hoping for one of the front runners to break than actually being able to run with the two top teams. Interestingly enough, if you had not attended this prestigious event in past years you would not even know that Peugeot fielded a team; it is almost as if a clean team swept the track and removed every vestige of the team that won here once in its five year stay.

In LMP2 there are no less than 20 teams here, all of which think they have a good chance of a podium at the end of 24 hours on Sunday.  The GT class will be its usual dogfight with 20 entries. One team that is notable by its absence is BMW with no cars entered.

It is also notable to see that members of the now defunct Peugeot team have all seemingly found rides for the 80th running of 24 Hours of Le Mans. Marc Gene, a member of the winning Peugeot team in 2009 landed in an Audi seat and proceeded to take his R18 Ultra to first place at the second WEC race of the year at Spa. A second member of that winning Peugeot team, Alexander Wurz landed with the highly touted Toyota hybrid team.

Two other former Peugeot pilots landed on the second Toyota team. Englishman Anthony Davidson and Frenchman Stephan Sarrazin also are driving for the Toyota hybrid team. Davidson, a member of the Peugeot winning team at Sebring in 2010 while Sarrazin brings the experience of three pole positions at Le Mans in 2007, 2008, and 2009,

Sebastian Bourdais, the pole winner in 2010 and a second place finisher at Circuit de La Sarthe in 2007, 2009, and 2011with Peugeot joined the Pescarlo Dome- Judd team to round out the former Peugeot drivers who are competing at the 24 hours race this year.