Many problems, but also promising lap times: Here’s how Peugeot looks back on the WEC debut of its 9X8 hypercar at Monza
In the first WEC race with the 9X8 in Monza, Peugeot paid a fair price. The 93 (di Resta/Jensen/Vergne) had to retire from the race after many problems and defects.
“It was a tough race for us,” said Technical Director Olivier Jansonnie to ‘Sportscar365’. “We came here to learn and we learned a lot. The start and qualifying last night were difficult. One car, the 93 “at the same time”.
“One of the problems” that led to the loss of power, however, was a lack of boost pressure from the biturbo, he said. “We don’t know if this is the problem or the result of another problem,” Peugeot’s technical director added. The 93 managed only 46 laps in the Monza 6h – the winning distance was 194 laps.
Peugeot 94: Safety car the beginning of the end
The sister car, on the other hand, hinted at what the Peugeot 9X8 was capable of in the first third of the race. For around two hours, Duval/Menezes/Rossiter kept up with the three-way battle between the Toyotas and the Alpine. “Then the safety car came at exactly the wrong time, and then the problems came on top of that,” Jansonnie lamented.
Peugeot detected signs of overheating in the 94 had a much better race overall,” Jansonnie records. “We only had to stop a couple of times because of a temperature problem on the car. This is definitely where we learn something about racing in traffic. There was some debris flying around and that was a new experience for us. That’s part of what we want to learn. “
Pace of 9X8 promising on WEC debut
In the free practice sessions, things went better for Peugeot. There, the lion brand was able to place at least one car in the top 3 in every session. And with their fastest times in FT3 (both 1:37.0 minutes), Mikkel Jensen in the 94 came within 1.6 seconds of the fastest time of the weekend.
This was set by Glickenhaus driver Romain Dumas in qualifying, when he took pole in a superior manner. Peugeot’s gap to Toyota was only 0.7 seconds. The Peugeots were 1.7 seconds off the fastest race lap (both 1:38.3 minutes). “If the car runs without any problems for once, we believe we can keep up,” Jansonnie is convinced.
And continues, “We never know exactly what the competition is doing. But if you look at our last stint, the lap times were quite competitive. That’s a very good answer for us. We knew we still had a lot to learn. I think we kind of achieved our goals because we came to learn. “
“Will probably find new problems” until Fuji
Now it’s a case of taking the lessons from Monza and internalising them between now and the next race at Fuji. Jansonnie knows, however, that they are only at the beginning: “We hope that we can solve the problems we had here. We will probably find new ones as well. That’s the game we’re going to play until the end of the year.”
In 2023, there will finally be no more excuses. Then Peugeot will not only contest the entire WEC season. There will also be new, top-class competition in the form of Ferrari, Porsche and Cadillac alongside Toyota and Glickenhaus.
