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Peugeot claims unfair treatment in veiled BoP attack following WEC Spa

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


Jean-Marc Finot, the French manufacturer’s motorsport boss, told Motorsport.com at Spa that “my feeling is that we are being treated unfairly”.

He did not mention the BoP, because it is expressly forbidden for manufacturers, teams and drivers to talk about it in the series’ sporting regulations.

But the interference from his comments has to be that Peugeot believes its updated 9X8 2024 Le Mans Hypercar should have received a performance break for its second WEC appearance at Spa last weekend.

“We have spent one year trying to improve the car and we don’t see the effect on the race track or in our results,” continued Finot.

“That is very difficult to understand and is very bad for team morale.”

The new version of the 9X8 wasn’t competitive on its debut at Imola in April and received no help from the BoP ahead of Saturday’s Spa 6 Hours.

The car was given a 4kg weight increase and a 2kW (2.5bhp) power decrease ahead of round three of the WEC in Belgium.

That was in accordance with a realignment in the BoP for the Circuit de Spa-Franchorchamps that resulted in only minor changes for all the cars in the Hypercar class bar the Ferrari 499P LMH, which was pegged back after Imola with a 12kg increase in minimum weight and a power reduction of 4kW (5bhp).

#93 Peugeot Totalenergies Peugeot 9X8: Mikkel Jensen, Nico Muller

#93 Peugeot Totalenergies Peugeot 9X8: Mikkel Jensen, Nico Muller

Photo by: Marco Losi / KAPPAEMEDIA

But the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, which co-organises the WEC with the FIA, re-iterated a key component of the new BoP methodology introduced for 2024 in reaction to Finot’s comments.

“The process of the BoP lays down a window, and if a car is overperforming we will slow them down quickly,” explained club president Pierre Fillon.

“But if a car is underperforming we will react much more slowly — this is to avoid sandbagging.”

Peugeot Sport technical director Olivier Jansonnie described the showing at Spa as disappointing despite the best of the two 9X8s finishing in the points in 10th place.

“We are quite disappointed by the performance of the car here,” he said after the race.

“We knew from the start, from Free Practice 1, that it would be quite difficult here to be honest, but we were hoping to be a bit closer than what we showed today.”

Jansonnie pointed out that at Spa the 9X8 was quick in the fast first and last sectors, which accurately replicate sections of the Circuit de la Sarthe at Le Mans.

“We hope that we can show better pace at the Le Mans 24 Hours,” he continued.

“It is quite different in terms of layout”.

Finot refused to make any predictions for Le Mans next month while again steering clear of mention of the BoP.

“There is something that I cannot speak of that will be different for Le Mans, so I cannot make any forecast,” he said.

Last year the original version of the 9X8 posted one of its best performances at Le Mans, leading the race on four occasions between the early evening and shortly before the halfway mark as the #93 entry shared Loic Duval, Nico Muller and Gustavo Menezes consistently ran in the top three.

The revised version of the Peugeot has abandoned the equally-sized front and rear tyres in favour of the narrower fronts and wider rears run by the rest of the Hypercar field.

The rearward shift in weight distribution that has accompanied the new tyre dimensions has resulted in an overhaul of the aerodynamic concept and the addition of a conventional rear wing.

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Peugeot explains decision not to use WEC reserve driver at Spa

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


A desire to maximise seat time for the regular drivers of its 2024-spec 9X8 Le Mans Hypercar, which is making only its second race outing prior to next month’s Le Mans 24 Hours, was cited by technical director Olivier Jansonnie as a justification for not giving reserve Malthe Jakobsen a WEC race debut. 

«We’re looking for stability in our crew, basically, trying to make sure that we maximise the driving time for the drivers going to Le Mans afterwards, that was the only thing for us,» Jansonnie said when asked by Motorsport.com to explain its approach. 

«We’ve been giving driving time in testing to Malthe, I think it was all very positive. 

«Now coming to Le Mans, preparing for the race, it was good for us to have this kind of repeat, even if it’s only with two drivers.»

Peugeot will run two drivers in each of its cars at Spa, with Vergne and Vandoorne on Formula E duty in Berlin sister Stellantis brand DS. Mikkel Jensen and Nico Muller share the #93 entry, with Paul di Resta and Loic Duval aboard #94.

Jansonnie rejected the view that not utilising Asian Le Mans Series champion Jakobsen might mean he is unprepared if called upon for Le Mans, where he is scheduled to race for Cool Racing in LMP2.

«Personally, [I think] he’s ready for almost every race,» he said. 

Photo by: Peugeot Sport

Jakobsen explained that he accepted the team’s decision. 

«Of course, I’m a racing driver and I prefer to be sitting in a race car with the steering wheel between my hands,» he said. 

«But I understand the team’s importance of keeping the team environment and the team spirit with a brand-new car and to prepare themselves as best as possible for the 24 Hours of Le Mans which is the big target for everybody in this sport and especially the team as well.

«I still feel like I’m ready, otherwise I don’t think they would have given me the opportunity to be a reserve driver because it means that if one day one of the drivers won’t be ready to drive, I would have to step in.»

Jansonnie said that Spa would be «interesting for us to experiment this kind of two drivers situation» as he anticipates there will be more scenarios in the future when clashes arise «just because simply there are more and more races».

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He believes mirroring the approach adopted since Imola by the Ganassi-run Cadillac Racing V-Series.R LMDh, which is also being followed at Spa by the #12 Jota Porsche 963 LMDh with Norman Nato racing in FE, will «make our life much easier in free practice» and allow for a more focused approach to car set-up. 

«You’re just increasing more variables you have to play with [having] three drivers, so it should be a bit easier,» he said. 

«And in the race, we will see, it really depends on the number of stints we’ll have in the race. 

«If we keep the race to six stints, it’s probably easy, if you start doing seven stints then we’ll have to scratch our heads and see how we do that with the drivers.»

Following a 4kg weight gain and 2kW reduction in maximum power in the latest Balance of Performance revealed earlier this week, Jansonnie said «We don’t expect to be at the very front» at Spa.



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Peugeot won’t replace Vergne, Vandoorne for Spa WEC amid Formula E clash

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


The French manufacturer has not nominated a replacement for either Jean-Eric Vergne or Stoffel Vandoorne, who will be competing with Peugeot sister marque DS and Penske in the clashing Berlin round of the Formula E World Championship on the weekend of 11/12 May.

It means Nico Muller and Mikkel Jensen will race the #93 Peugeot as a duo and Paul di Resta and Loic Duval likewise in the #94 Hypercar class entry.

Peugeot has passed up on the opportunity to give Malthe Jakobsen, who was signed as the WEC team’s junior driver last May, a first race outing in the 9X8.

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It was not considering anyone else except the 20-year-old Dane for Spa, which meant that one of the 9X8s was always going to have two drivers in the absence of Vergne and Vandoorne.

Jean-Marc Finot, who is motorsport boss of Peugeot and all the Stellantis group brands, said at the Qatar WEC season-opener in March that he would “not be looking outside of the Peugeot family” to fill the vacant seats.

The confirmation of Peugeot’s two-driver plan came with the release of the entry list for the Spa 6 Hours on 11 May on Wednesday.

Jota Porsche driver Norman Nato and Iron Lynx Lamborghini’s Edoardo Mortara will also miss Spa as planned to fulfil their FE commitments with Andretti and Mahindra respectively.

Nato will not be replaced alongside Will Stevens and Callum Ilott in the #12 Porsche 963 LMDh as already confirmed.

#12 Hertz Team Jota Porsche 963: Will Stevens, Callum Ilott, Norman Nato

#12 Hertz Team Jota Porsche 963: Will Stevens, Callum Ilott, Norman Nato

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Long-time Lambo factory driver Andrea Caldarelli will swap over from the Iron Lynx IMSA SportsCar Championship programme in three of the endurance rounds to join Mirko Bortolotti and Daniil Kvyat in the solo WEC SC63 LMDh.

Alpine has nominated Ferdinand Habsburg for its #35 A424 in the expectation that he will have recovered from the back injuries sustained in a crash in testing last month.

Philippe Sinault, boss of the Signatech team that runs the factory Alpines, stated last weekend at the Imola WEC round that he was “expecting good news” from Habsburg this week.

But it is understood that the Austrian has yet to receive the sign-off from doctors to get back in a racing car.

Harry Tincknell is listed in the Proton Competition Porsche 963 LMDh, but is more likely to be in Laguna Seca fulfilling his obligations in the IMSA series as part of Ford’s GT Daytona Pro programme with the Mustang GT3.

Larry Holt, whose Multimatic organisation masterminds Ford’s GT3 activities, said at Imola that it is likely that this drive will take precedence for Tincknell.

Toyota Hypercar class reserve driver Ritomo Miyata will drive the #78 Auto Sport Promotion Lexus RC F GT3 in place of Kelvin van der Linde.

The South African will racing for the Abt Cupra FE squad in Berlin instead of Nico Muller in his capacity as reserve driver for the German team.

#78 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus RC F LMGT3: Arnold Robin, Timur Boguslavskiy, Kelvin Van Der Linde

#78 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus RC F LMGT3: Arnold Robin, Timur Boguslavskiy, Kelvin Van Der Linde

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Miyata will be making his second race appearance in one of Toyota sister marque Lexus’s GT3 cars after contesting the Daytona 24 Hours IMSA round with the Vasser Sullivan squad.

Iron Dames Lamborghini driver Doriane Pin will miss the Spa WEC race to begin her Formula Renault Regional Championship by Alpine campaign at Hockenheim with the same team.

She will be replaced in the Iron Lynx-run Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2’s all-female line-up by Rahel Frey, who was part of the team’s WEC line-up alongside Sarah Bovy and Michelle Gatting in 2021-23.

Pin will return to the Iron Dames Lamborghini for the Le Mans 24 Hours WEC round in June before concentrating on her single-seater commitments in FRECA and F1 Academy.

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Peugeot ‘scratching their heads’ after poor Imola WEC qualifying in new-look 9X8

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


Jean-Eric Vergne insisted that he and the Peugeot Sport team left nothing on the table on the way to 15th position in the opening qualifying session, five places off the cut-off for the Hyperpole final. 

He added that only a small improvement would have been possible without the red flag two minutes before the end of the initial period of qualifying. 

“As a team we did a very good job and we extracted the most from the car,” he told Autosport. 

“Without the red flag, we might have had two or three tenths, but nowhere near what we needed to be in Hyperpole.

“It was a kind of a moment where you exit the car and you are scratching your head on what to improve to go faster.

“The car balance was great, the team did a great job all weekend to give me a good car in quali — in terms of driving it felt very good.”

The two Peugeot 9X8 2024 Le Mans Hypercars were a second and a half off the pace of Antonio Fuoco in the pole-winning Ferrari 499P LMH in the opening 12-minute session. 

That gap grew to more than two seconds once Fuoco improved by seven tenths in the 10-minute Hyperpole session. 

Stoffel Vandoorne was slightly the quicker of the two Peugeot drivers, his 1m31.651s, a tenth up on Vergne’s, 1m31.748s, putting him 14th. 

The inference from Vergne’s comments is that there is still work to do on the Balance of Performance for the revised 9X8 making its debut this weekend in Italy. 

#93 Peugeot Totalenergies Peugeot 9X8: Mikkel Jensen, Nico Muller, Jean-Eric Vergne

#93 Peugeot Totalenergies Peugeot 9X8: Mikkel Jensen, Nico Muller, Jean-Eric Vergne

Photo by: Paul Foster

It follows an admission of surprise from Peugeot Sport technical boss Olivier Jansonnie at the BoP for the 9X8 at Imola. 

He described the BoP for the 9X8 as “tough”, while stressing that Peugeot trusts in the processes of the rule makers, the FIA and the Automobile Club de l’Ouest. 

Vergne stressed that Peugeot’s job in Sunday’s Imola 6 Hours will be to execute the perfect race. 

“Regardless of the performance we need to finish the race and say we have done everything right, made the right calls, had good pitstop strategy, and as drivers made no mistakes, been good on tyre management and aggressive when we needed to be,” he said. 

“We have to take this race very seriously because the day we have the car to win we need to be ready and we need to be perfect. 

“We are going to try to race perfection tomorrow regardless of where we end up.”



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Peugeot surprised by severity of WEC Balance of Performance hit

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


The French manufacturer has admitted surprise at the BoP for its Le Mans Hypercar, now known as the 9X8 2024, which will hit the track 31kg heavier and with 10kW (13bhp) less power than its predecessor did at the Qatar WEC season-opener in March.

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The increase in minimum weight and the decrease in power for the Peugeot at this weekend’s Imola 6 Hours have come in the face of more a favourable BoP for all its competitors in the Hypercar class: weight has been decreased and power increased for the other eight car types.

“We had an adjustment and it is not easy, for sure,” said Olivier Jansonnie, technical director of the in-house Peugeot Sport squad.

“The BoP had to change, that was clear, but we were not expecting it to be that tough.

“We were a bit surprised, but in the end they [rule makers the FIA and the Automobile Club de l’Ouest] have the information, and we have to trust the system and that they have done the right job.”

Asked if he thought the FIA and the ACO were taking a cautious approach on the Peugeot’s BoP for the first race of the updated 9X8, Jansonnie replied: “It is not being cautious.

“They act on what they see and then evaluate the performance of our car on the homologation. Judging by that, we must have done a very good car.”

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

The revised BoP for the Peugeot follows a change in concept of the 9X8: equal-width 31cm tyres front and rear have been abandoned in favour of the 29cm fronts and 34cm rears run by all the competition in Hypercar.

This has resulted in new aerodynamics, including the addition of a conventional rear wing, around the same monocoque and running gear of the original 9X8 that joined the WEC in mid-2022.

It is regarded as a new car by the rule makers for the purposes of the BoP because it has been rehomologated.

Peugeot’s new LMH has now completed 12-15,000km in testing since running for the first time at the end of last year over four endurance simulations at Paul Ricard (twice), Portimao and Aragon.

But Jansonnie conceded that his team still needed time to optimise the 9X8 2024.

“We have a lot to learn with this car,” he explained. “I am not saying we are starting all over again, but there is a lot to learn on the set-up.”

Loic Duval, who shares the #94 Peugeot with Paul di Resta and Stoffel Vandoorne, admitted that the new car had yet to be fine-tuned in the same way as the original 9X8, which lost second position in the closing stages of the Qatar 1812Km when it ran out of fuel.

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

He pointed out that testing so far had been focused on endurance running ahead of the Le Mans 24 Hours WEC round in June and not “digging into pure performance”.

Duval suggested that the mk1 9X8 was more or less maxed out in terms of performance and that “it will take a lot of work to operate this car at the level of the previous one at the end”.

“This we don’t still have and won’t have it, like tomorrow; it takes a little bit of time,” he added. But he said the mk2 version was “a big, big step forward”.



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Peugeot reveals revised 9X8 Le Mans Hypercar with rear wing

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


First images of a car known as the 9X8 2024 in a new livery reveal a conventional, if low-line rear wing on a car that retains the familiar look of the original version, which entered competition in the final three races of the 2022 season.

The addition of the wing, which hadn’t been previously confirmed by Peugeot, follows the French manufacturer’s decision to abandon the equal width front and rear tyres of the mk1 car.

Peugeot’s 9X8 now runs 29cm tyres at the front and 34cm at the rear like all its competitors in the WEC’s Hypercar class rather than the 31/31 of before.

The adoption of the revised tyre dimensions has forced Peugeot to undertake a massive overhaul of the avant-garde concept of its LMH.

The 31/31 tyres allowed Peugeot to go for a 50/50 front/rear weight distribution, while the freedoms in the LMH rulebook meant it could generate most of the car’s downforce from the underfloor.

Combined, they allowed it do away with the need for a conventional rear wing.

The weight bias of the car has now been shifted to the rear and more downforce comes from the upper body surfaces, including the rear wing.

Peugeot Sport technical director Olivier Jansonnie explained that his design team had “touched 90-95% of the surfaces of the car”.

“From the public’s standpoint it looks very similar to the previous car, the car looks the same, just an add-on of a rear wing,” he said.

“It was one of the challenges, one of the constraints we had was that we wanted to keep the overall look of the car.

“It is interesting that you can achieve quite a substantially different aero concept with surfaces that are changed but all looking very the same.”

Peugeot Totalenergies Peugeot 9X8

Peugeot Totalenergies Peugeot 9X8

Photo by: Peugeot Sport

The 9X8 2024 retains the monocoque and the crash structures of the original.

That was important, said Jansonnie, in order for Peugeot to avoid having to do another crash test as part of the homologation.

“Keeping the rear [crash structure] was actually a challenge with the new rear wing; obviously the rear end is quite different,” he said. “That was important for us from a schedule standpoint.”

The rearward shift in weight distribution has allowed Peugeot to undertake revisions to the car’s 2.6-litre twin-turbo V6 and its seven-speed gearbox in the name of reliability.

Jansonnie revealed that the decision to undertake a massive overhaul of the 9X8, which includes invoking some of the evo joker performance upgrades allowed to LMH and LMDh machinery, was taken last March after the 2023 Sebring 1000 Miles season-opener.

It started testing a mule car on the new tyres last summer, but didn’t go public with its plans until the last round of the series at Bahrain in November.

Jansonnie explained that the motivation to overhaul a car that has finished no better than third since Peugeot’s return to top-flight sportscar racing was to ensure the marque was less reliant on the Balance of Performance.

“The main factor for the decision to change the car was to rely less on the BoP, which we cannot control,” he said.

Peugeot wanted to “do something that is putting us much closer in terms of car concept to our competition, so we can be in the ballpark of performance regardless of what the BoP is doing”.

Peugeot has not revealed how many of the five evo joker performance upgrades it is allowed over the lifecycle of the 9X8 were used in the revisions for 2024.

Peugeot Totalenergies Peugeot 9X8

Peugeot Totalenergies Peugeot 9X8

Photo by: Peugeot Sport

Peugeot Totalenergies Peugeot 9X8

Peugeot Totalenergies Peugeot 9X8

Photo by: Peugeot Sport

Peugeot Totalenergies Peugeot 9X8

Peugeot Totalenergies Peugeot 9X8

Photo by: Peugeot Sport

 

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