Peugeot: Further 9X8 Updates Possible for Start of 2025

Peugeot is already weighing up the possibility of using additional Evo jokers to boost the competitiveness of its 9X8 Le Mans Hypercar, potentially as early as the start of the 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship season.

The French marque’s technical director Olivier Jansonnie made the admission ahead of this weekend’s penultimate round of the season at Fuji, against the backdrop of the updated 9X8 2024’s continued competitive struggles.

Since the heavily-revised update was introduced in April at Imola, Peugeot’s best finish has been eighth place in the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo.

Jansonnie believes there is still more potential to come from the current iteration of the 9X8, but concedes that the use of further Evo jokers is on the table as Peugeot begins to consider its strategy to turn around its fortunes in 2025.

“Right now we are looking at various things,” Jansonnie told reporters. “We have isolated some things and started to pinpoint some things on the car. The last two races especially were quite relevant for that.

“We expect that part of that is setup that we can cure, and once we have a clear picture of what we cannot cure with set-up, we will have to look at Evo jokers eventually.

“Hopefully we can find some performance using the current homologation. We are not 100 percent there yet, so we need to push in that direction.

“Only once you start being close to that point can you see what you are missing and what needs to evolve in terms of the homologation.”

As well as this weekend’s Fuji round and November’s season-closing 8 Hours of Bahrain, Jansonnie said that a test Peugeot has planned during October in an undisclosed location in Europe will also have a bearing on its plans.

Asked whether a further update to the 9X8 in time for the start of the 2025 season is possible, Jansonnie replied: “It’s open. For sure we are looking hard into what could bring us performance.

“It depends what we find on-track next month [in testing]. For me the target is to have a clear picture by the end of November.”

After a chastening showing in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Jansonnie outlined a target of battling for the podium in the remaining races of this season.

The Frenchman conceded that, with two races to go and few signs of a competitive uplift for Peugeot, fulfilling this target will be “difficult.”

He added: “It was pretty clear that turning the classification upside down would be pretty difficult, but for sure there is more potential in the car than we have shown so far.

“Whether we can get it to the top… this is hard to tell. I agree at the minute it looks difficult. But for sure there is more to find.

“When you look at our race in COTA, generally the team deserves better performance than we showed at COTA. That’s what we are working hard on.”

Jansonnie also remained adamant that introducing the 9X8 for Imola was the right thing to do when asked if he would have done anything differently.

“I still believe that at Le Mans, the new car was a bit quicker [than the previous version would have been],” he said. “We were in the ‘corner’ of the Balance of Performance with the old car [meaning running with the minimum weight and maximum power].

“We couldn’t introduce the new car earlier. Ideally we would have done at Qatar but we couldn’t do it, for scheduling and timing reasons.

“I think trying to get the car on track as soon as we could was still the best option, because it’s taking time to reach the potential of this car. If we had delayed the introduction of the car, we would have achieved that even later.”