Peugeot Sport has announced their drivers for their upcoming Hypercar programme.
The French car manufacturer will enter the FIA World Endurance Championship, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans from 2022.
The team has signed 7 drivers, with 6 of them being race drivers.
38-year-old Loic Duval will be the oldest driver in the programme. Duval has previously raced a Peugeot, when he raced for Pescarolo Sport in 2009. He went on to race for an ORECA for a couple of seasons, before getting picked up by Audi Sport. He raced Le Mans and FIA WEC for them from 2012 until 2016, and then moved on to DTM. He currently races in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in a Cadillac DPi car, for the JDC-Miller Motorsports team.
37-year-old James Rossiter has been named reserve and simulator driver for the team. The Brit has a lot of experience in similar jobs in Formula 1, and more recently, for the championship-winning Techeetah team in Formula E.
34-year-old Paul Di Resta will bring both Formula 1 and sportscar experience to the team. The Scot has raced 59 F1 races, but has more recently been more active for United Autosports, where he won the LMP2 category in the Asian Le Mans Series 2018/19 and Le Mans 2020. If he hadn’t missed the Fuji FIA WEC round in 2019 due to his F1 commitment, he would have been crowned LMP2 Champion too, along with his teammates.
30-year-old Jean-Eric Vergne has Formula 1 experience too, but has had his greatest success within Formula E, where he is a double champion. He has been more or less full-time driver at G-Drive Racing, but has missed out on the championship, since he always has to miss at least one race, each season.
28-year-old Kevin Magnussen has just stepped into the sportscar world, following six seasons of Formula 1. He has signed for Cadillac Chip Ganassi Racing in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, and quickly found the key to handle both quicker and slower traffic. With a season worth of knowledge, he will surely be ready for Hypercar in 2022.
Graphics: Peugeot Sport
26-year-old Mikkel Jensen will be the second Dane on the team, next to Magnussen. Jensen has an ADAC Formula Masters and an LMP3 title to his CV, but has loads of experience from the BMW Junior programme too, where he raced GT3 for several years. He made his LMP2 debut in 2020, and will continue racing that in 2021 in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, plus a February job in the Asian Le Mans Series for Car Guy in the GT3 category.
26-year-old Gustavo Menezes is one of the most experienced sportscar drivers on the team. The American has raced two seasons for the Signatech team, and then moved on to Rebellion Racing and their LMP1 programme, which he was a part of for two seasons. He has signed a contract with Glickenhaus, who will be part of Hypercar in 2021. He will only get a single season with the outfit.
Peugeot Sport hasn’t decided yet, the exact driver combinations in the two cars. That is something that the team will start to figure out in the coming months, with loads of simulator training and development, with the real car being ready for testing in the fall of 2021, ahead of its 2022 race debut.
The team has already announced that it will be a homebuilt Hypercar with a hybrid power train. Toyota Gazoo Racing will run a hybrid Hypercar too, while Glickenhaus will run a Hypercar without hybrid. Alpine Elf Matmut has entered a de-tuned Rebellion Racing R13, that they will run with their own A480 sticker. Several LMDh teams are also on their way, with Audi, Porsche and Acura programmes announced, but yet to announce if they will enter in 2022 or 2023.
