The 2024 FIA WEC season has been a tough one for Peugeot TotalEnergies.
It started off with a highly encouraging but heartbreaking run at Qatar, in which its #93 fought for victory before hitting trouble in the closing minutes. Then from Imola onwards, it switched to the 2024-spec 9X8, with its new tyre sizes and aerodynamic concept.
The results of the development work over the off-season to this point are mixed.
On one hand, the drivers feel it gives them more confidence behind the wheel, it’s a more consistent car to drive. On the other, the team has struggled to extract outright pace and through four races has a best finish of eighth in São Paulo.
The races so far this season of course included Le Mans, the most important race for the team due to its prestige and location. Peugeot hoped its work to update the 9X8 would vault it into contention on home soil and see it compete for a fourth overall win.
It didn’t quite work out that way and while both 9X8s finished the race, they failed to make an impact, coming home 11th and 12th, two laps down.
That performance and subsequent struggles at São Paulo resulted in frustrations boiling over within the camp.
Jean-Eric Vergne, who drives the #93, was both deflated and frustrated after failing to make Hyperpole. He feels Peugeot needs more than just a favourable BoP change.
“We don’t have performance,” he said. “We did the best we could. Set-up wise, plan wise, we are doing our best but we are just slow. We are losing time everywhere.
“It’s not getting better. It’s very frustrating and I don’t know really what to say. There’s no reason behind our extremely poor performance. We just aren’t quick enough.
“Our performance has nothing to do with São Paulo. Le Mans wasn’t great, Spa wasn’t great, Imola wasn’t great. It’s very difficult and it’s hard for the guys that do such a good job in our team. It doesn’t matter who you put in the car, you can’t go faster than this. It’s not the mechanics, drivers or engineers that are at fault.
“We need a better car. The car needs to change, 100 per cent. There is nowhere to hide anymore.”
A day later the race itself proved to be kinder to the 9X8s, but still, they were no match for the likes of Porsche and Ferrari and certainly not Toyota which dominated the race.
The #93 ran towards the front – but out-of-sequence – for much of the race before finishing eighth. The car was good at switching on the Hard Michelins and was at its best when the temperature was at its highest.
Yet again the car was still off the ultimate pace, yet reliable.
So, with three races remaining and 2025 now looming, where does Peugeot go from here?
Peugeot has been out testing at CoTA ahead of Lone Star Le Mans over the summer and took part in the Michelin tyre test focused on the new Hypercar compounds which were due to debut in 2025 but have been delayed a year to ’26.
Peugeot has also made another tweak to its driver roster. Gone is Nico Müller, he’s off to Porsche (via Andretti in Formula E) for a fresh start, in is Malthe Jakobsen, promoted from junior, to reserve and now a full time driver. The young, undeniably rapid Dane will become a Hypercar factory driver next year at age 20.
Olivier Jansonnie, Peugeot’s technical director, adds that the hard work doesn’t stop on the 9X8 to make it a contender.
While there is no opportunity to debut any further updates to the car before the end of the season due to the logistical constraints caused by the flyaways, developments are being explored for the 2025 season.
Speaking with DSC after the race in Brazil, Jansonnie gave a more pragmatic assessment of the current situation.
“We didn’t have the pace to be at the front (in São Paulo). We knew tyre strategy would be paramount. But overall we executed a good strategy and we got the best out of our package,” he reflected. “That’s a positive. But we have to find more performance in the car. That’s for sure.
“There’s no reason why we can’t extract more pace from the car. We are missing grip overall, that’s clear and we have ideas and options to fix it. We just need time to test.
“It’s difficult to improve during race weekends because practice is short and when you go to new circuits you are learning.
“I agree that we need to find pace in most areas. But I believe that will come from testing and set-up work.
“When you look at the timing of the season, the races are close so it’s unlikely we can bring something new for this season. But for sure we are thinking about what we can do during the winter in time for next season.
“For now we look to the final races. CoTA is an unknown, but then Fuji and Bahrain, we know them. Bahrain will be key, it’s all about degradation and we hope that with the new car we can contain it and have a better performance to end the season.”
