Vandoorne Has “No Regrets” as Peugeot Chapter Closes

Stoffel Vandoorne says he looks back “very positively” on his tenure with Peugeot in the FIA World Endurance Championship ahead of his final race start with the French manufacturer’s Hypercar program this weekend at Fuji.

The Belgian was confirmed earlier this month to be departing Peugeot’s roster of Hypercar drivers, with current reserve driver Theo Pourchaire set to fill Vandoorne’s slot starting at the Bahrain season finale.

Vandoorne has been heavily linked to the Genesis Magma Racing LMDh program, which has two vacancies left to fill ahead of its WEC debut next year after Mathys Jaubert and Daniel Juncadella were recently officially named.

The 33-year-old first joined Peugeot as a reserve driver in 2023 before stepping up to a full-time race drive in 2024 in place of Gustavo Menezes.

He drove 13 races for Peugeot, peaking with a podium finish in the rain-soaked Lone Star Le Mans at Circuit of The Americas earlier this month.

When asked by Sportscar365 how he looks back on his tenure with Peugeot, Vandoorne responded: “Still very positively.”

“It was obviously great to join Peugeot, which is a super cool brand in endurance racing, and to get my way back into WEC and onto the Hypercar grid,” he said.

“Especially in a time where the championship is growing a lot. So that’s been great.

“Obviously results-wise, it’s been, I would say, ups and downs. We had a podium last time out in Austin, which was very well deserved by everyone.

“I think this year in general has been better than last year. But yeah, I think we were probably hoping for a little bit more at some point.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t achieve that, but still I have no regrets.

“Every time I was in the car, I tried to give everything to get a result and I’ll continue to do that here this weekend in Fuji.”

Vandoorne spoke positively about the growth of the program he witnessed up close during his time at Peugeot, noting it has taken significant steps forward in the two seasons he’s raced there.

“It’s definitely grown,” he said. “What you can’t forget is that this operation kind of started from scratch.

“A lot of the brands, they’ve been kind of partnering with an operations team that existed before already and that maybe fast tracks a little bit of the development process whilst this team kind of started from scratch.

“So obviously the margin for improvement was quite big and I think we are a good operation now. I would say everything about it is very good.

“We run the races very well, I think we make very few mistakes, we execute good strategies, there’s a very good atmosphere in the team.

“We just lack a bit of car performance. That’s the only negative about it.”

When asked, Vandoorne identified the Austin podium as one of the highlights of his time with the French brand, as it marked the occasion where the team was able to put a convincing result together.

“There’s been other moments where we had some really good stints in races and where we looked super competitive, but where we didn’t get the result because of reliability and stuff like that,” Vandoorne said.

“Finally in Austin, we kind of got rewarded with the result, let’s say. So, of course, when you manage to finish the job, it feels much nicer.

“But I think another highlight was Spa qualifying. We were very competitive. Unfortunately, we didn’t finish the race there but we were also looking quite strong.”