Team Peugeot TotalEnergies has teased its 2027-spec 9X8 Hypercar with a first-look CGI render of it running at speed ahead of its debut next year.
The new-look 9X8, according to Peugeot, will feature “a series of technical evolutions aimed at enhancing performance, efficiency and competitiveness”, in a bid to win its first WEC race and fight for the Manufacturers’ World Championship. While the majority of the car (which is testing at Paul Ricard this week) is obscured in the shot released by Peugeot today, the angle shown does reveal an all-new roof-mounted air intake.
“Since its debut, the Peugeot 9X8 has been a platform in constant evolution. Competing at the highest level of endurance racing means continuously learning, adapting and progressing,” said Emmanuel Esnault, the team principal of Peugeot TotalEnergies.
“The intensity of competition at a world championship level reinforces our determination to keep evolving. Our objective is clear: to position the 9X8 consistently among the top contenders. As we look ahead to 2027, the team is taking the next step in its development, focused on a revised approach to performance, efficiency and design. This work is a key milestone in preparing the next chapter of the Peugeot 9X8 story and perpetuating the legacy of Peugeot in endurance racing.”
While the updates for Peugeot’s Hypercar are set to be substantial, the car will continue to race as a 9X8, as previously revealed by the brand’s CEO Alain Favey back in June in conversation with reporters ahead of the Le Mans 24 Hours.
The 9X8 has been chopped and changed multiple times since its debut in the second half of the 2022 FIA WEC season, with Peugeot using up its allotted Jokers to widen the car’s set-up window and change its aerodynamic philosophy. It has worked hard to improve the car’s reliability too, though updates focused on safety and reliability are not considered EVO ‘Jokers’.
However, tweaks to the WEC Hypercar sporting regulations for 2026 have granted Peugeot more leeway to overhaul the car once again, as “Additional Evolutions (EVO ‘Jokers’) can be granted for a demonstrated significant lack of performance as determined by the governing body.”
This reveal comes after Peugeot reaffirmed its commitment to the 9X8 and the WEC’s Hypercar formula until at least 2030.
“We’re committed,” Favey explained at Le Mans. “Peugeot is 216 years old. If we’ve managed to exist for so long, it’s also always because we’ve come out of, you know, difficult times and had better times and less good times, and it’s been, it’s been like that.
“But if anything, Peugeot is extremely resilient, and that’s what we want to demonstrate, also in our involvement in the week, and in the month, definitely. So we confirmed that we would be part of the championship until 2029, in the knowledge that something would happen to the rules in 2030, and not knowing until today what these rules would officially be.
“It’s difficult for us to project beyond 2030, but at least to have the certainty that, in 2029, we can, with the current car and further evolutions, continue to work on being more competitive; that for us is enough to justify staying for another three years now.”
Featured image courtesy of Peugeot
