Race number two for the Peugeot 9X8 – and the Stellantis offshoot had a lot to do. The debut at the 6 Hours of Monza went through with the expected teething troubles, but for Fuji they want to have turned them off. Peugeot has also completed two private tests in Spain since Monza with the rear wingless Le Mans hypercar.
The hypercar had problems with the cooling of components, but Peugeot technical director Olivier Jansonnie does not describe them in more detail (official reason: “vehicle system problems”). Problems with the cooling would not come as a surprise, after all, race-specific aspects such as clogged radiators caused by dirt thrown up by vehicles in front are difficult to simulate during test drives.
“Obviously we’ve made great strides since Monza, but we certainly need to make some more to get to the level we want to reach,” Jansonnie told our sister portal Autosport.
“We’re expecting new problems that we’ve never seen before. We’re going through a steep learning curve. It’s a new race with new conditions and we’ve never driven the car here before, so we’re expecting all kinds of things.”
However, Jansonnie emphasizes that appropriate solutions have been found for the problems from Monza. So these should not be repeated. “We are aware that both the car and the team still have a lot of room for improvement. But we haven’t encountered a problem that we couldn’t solve.”
Monza debut for Peugeot right decision
Both cars were plagued by cooling problems at Monza. The Peugeot #93 (di Resta/Jensen/Vergne) retired early. The #94 (Duval/Menezes/Rossiter) could be refloated and reached the finish line 25 laps behind.
Jansonnie emphasizes that it was right to start racing in Monza: “We needed it. We achieved as much as we could in the tests. In order to push our development forward, it was time to work on a real race weekend to measure it against our competitors.”
The Fuji date is now the date on which the Peugeot 9X8 was actually developed. When the program started in November, the World Endurance Championship (WEC) was still following a multi-year winter calendar, which was abandoned again in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The expectations are correspondingly higher than in Monza. “Monza could have gone better for us, but that was to be expected at such an early stage of an ambitious project like this,” says Jean-Eric Vergne from the Peugeot #93, which retired early.
“During my stint in free practice, however, we were already close to Toyota in terms of pure speed. That proves that we’re on the right track with this unconventional vehicle. I’m absolutely convinced of that.”
Another challenge for Peugeot: Because it is an overseas race, the usual infrastructure with mobile homes and trucks is not available for the first time. “Therefore we have to adjust our processes,” says Jansonnie.