9X8 Le Mans Debut Offered “Beacon of Hope” for Peugeot

Peugeot’s performance in its first 24 Hours of Le Mans as a Hypercar entrant offered a “beacon of hope” for the program after a tough start, according to Gustavo Menezes.

The French manufacturer struggled with the reliability of the Peugeot 9X8 during its early FIA World Endurance Championship appearances, but the hybrid-powered LMH prototype appeared to have its strongest run to date in its seventh race last weekend.

The No. 94 Peugeot that Menezes shared with Loic Duval and Nico Mueller led portions of the race and was still a contender for the overall podium at halfway.

It later lost ground due to front-end repairs after an accident for Menezes at the Daytona Chicane early in the 12h hour, before engine issues took hold in the latter stages.

“Looking back, we didn’t really expect to see the top five throughout the race,” Menezes reflected.

“So to be in the lead 12 hours in, and not by luck but truly by merit, it was like a beacon of hope for the Peugeot family.

“We know we’ll come back stronger. We always say that we’re here to win. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but we’re going to get there.

“This was a really good taste for all the mechanics, sponsors and people supporting us. Now we go back to the drawing board and start working [again].”

Menezes added that there were “mixed emotions” about Peugeot not translating its strong first-half performance into a result better than eighth for the No. 93 crew.

The No. 94 car with Menezes at the wheel led during the second safety car period, under the first of two rain downpours, and was able to keep with the other front-runners despite initially losing positions when it waited until after the restart to switch to slicks.

According to technical director Olivier Jansonnie, Peugeot’s strategy of “taking a bit more risk” on tire choice, such as keeping its cars out on slicks for longer than the competition, helped it to gain positions.

Despite that, he assessed that fellow LMH competitors Toyota and Ferrari – which ended up battling for the overall win – had the quicker machinery on average.

“The race pace was different from qualifying,” said Jansonnie.

“For whatever reason, we don’t manage to put qualifying together. At last in the race, we have shown some times already that we have some pace.

“We had some pace during the race on some occasions that was very good. But to be clear, we couldn’t reach the level of the pace that Ferrari and Toyota had.”

Jansonnie added that the race produced “so many emotions” for Peugeot after the initial high of taking the lead was quelled by incidents for both cars and then mechanical issues.

The No. 93 car spun into the Mulsanne corner gravel during the fourth-hour safety car period before encountering a splitter failure and power steering issues.

“We have been very surprised to lead the race in the night,” Jansonnie said.

“In the end, we probably didn’t have the pace that the others had. This we knew from the test days, but the plan was to try and make some clever moves on the strategy, which we did.

“The drivers have been very focused. When you take some risks, you get some incidents.

“I’m extremely proud of the team. They have been incredible. They pushed like crazy to keep the car on the track and fix it every time we had to fix something.

“We knew we could not do many laps with the No. 94 car’s engine, so we parked it and fixed it, and finally just did a single lap at the end.”

Jansonie reckoned that Le Mans was the best race for the Peugeot program to date but that it needed to “fight like hell” to get both of its cars to the checkered flag.

When asked if he felt the event could serve as a turning point for the program, Jansonnie said: “I believe it is.”