Peugeot Set for First Race With New Gear Shift System

Peugeot hopes that its introduction of a new gear shift actuator system will help to improve its LMH car’s reliability in the second round of the FIA World Endurance Championship season.

The French manufacturer will this weekend contest its first race after making the switch from electric gear shift actuators to hydraulic actuators in an effort to banish problems with the former.

Both Peugeot 9X8s encountered major delays at the season-opening 1000 Miles of Sebring due to issues with the actuators, which are devices that help to convert the driver’s input on the paddles into a gear shift action.

At Sebring the team already knew about the electronic problem and had been working on a solution that it will run in race conditions for the first time at Portimao.

“Basically, the new one is hydraulic, whereas the first one was electric,” said Peugeot Sport WEC technical director Olivier Jansonnie.

“It’s completely different. So far, it seems to work. Gearshift-wise, we are happy with that. We have more reliability than the previous system.

“The question would be whether it’s enough. Hopefully we don’t run into trouble here. It’s for sure a better system, there’s no doubt.”

Jansonnie explained that Peugeot became aware of reliability issues with the electronic actuator system last year but didn’t make any changes until after the 8 Hours of Bahrain due to the time required to develop it.

“Before Bahrain, it started being clear that we had to do something,” he said.

“We started looking into it. It is quite a fundamental revision, a big change, on our car. It is not a rework of something existing.

“[The electronic system] was functioning quite well, just the reliability of the components.”

Peugeot tested the new hydraulic system during an endurance simulation at Paul Ricard last month, which generated positive feedback ahead of its first application in a race.

“We are happy with the shifting system on the mileage we have done for here,” said Jansonnie.

“At Ricard, we covered more mileage with the system than we will do here. But it’s one test, so you’re basing everything on a sample of one which is not super easy.”

Driver Loic Duval, who shares the No. 94 Peugeot with Gustavo Menezes and Nico Mueller, was satisfied with how the car ran during the test with the new system.

“So far it’s working pretty well,” he suggested. “We didn’t suffer any problems. At least the issues that we had in Sebring were gone. We didn’t suffer anything on that side, so it looks positive.

“It was one test at Paul Ricard, which is a really smooth [track] so we will see. We will learn from it, but it seems positive.”

Like the other manufacturers, Peugeot is aiming to get closer to Sebring winner Toyota Gazoo Racing, which Duval considers to be the “benchmark” team in Hypercar at present.

“We have what we have, and we have to try to optimize that and get as close to them,” he said.

“I think here, the gap will be smaller in terms of performance, and we believe that in terms of reliability because we have new stuff which was in the pipeline before Sebring that should help on the reliability issue we had [there].

“This goes in that direction, so we hope in both situations – performance and reliability – we will be closer to them.”