Peugeot Sport has revealed their new Hypercar, which will enter competition in 2022.
The French car manufacturer has named the car Peugeot 9X8, and it has a very special design regarding the rear end of the car.
The pictures show a racing car without rear wing, but just a low spoiler at the end of the engine cover.
The car has some very significant rear lights, which are the three stripes, that are known from their road cars. The lights sticks out from the bodywork, and have some aerodynamic effect to the car as well.
Graphics: Peugeot Sport
As the team already announced last September, it’s going to be part-time four-wheel-drive, with the hybrid part of the car being on the front-wheels only. It’s allowed to be 200Kw, while the internal combustion engine will deliver up to 500kW, which will be reduced while the hybrid part is active, since the car is not allowed to run more than 500kW at any time.
The team has already tested the gasoline powered engine since April, doing a lot of kilometres on the test bench. The final bits of the hybrid system are getting done now, so it will start testing soon.
The car is 5 meters long, 2,08 meters wide, and 1,18 tall.
Peugeot has a big history at Le Mans, where they won the race overall in 1992, 1993 and 2009. It won’t be easy to win the race again. They will be fighting again Toyota Gazoo racing and Glickenhaus in 2022, while the whole LMDh gang will arrive in 2023, which is the American pendant, based on LMP2 cars.
Graphics: Peugeot Sport
The first real testing of the car is expected to happen later in 2021, but they might not be at the season opener at the FIA World Endurance Championship 2022. The team has previously mentioned, that they expected the 2022/23 season to start in September, so with the FIA WEC returning to a traditional March to November/December schedule, it put them under some pressure regarding preparation time, compared to their original plans.
All teams are working towards Le Mans 2023, which is the big anniversary, with the race being run the first time in 1923.
Peugeot Sport has hired 7 drivers for the two cars, that they are going to enter. James Rossiter will however primarily focus on the car development in the simulator and during testing, plus being reserve driver in case one of the 6 regular drivers would be unable to race.
Graphics: Peugeot Sport
The six regular drivers are Kevin Magnussen, Mikkel Jensen, Jean-Eric Vergne, Loic Duval, Paul Di Resta and Gustavo Menezes. The driver combinations isn’t set yet, but it is unlikely to have two Danish or two French drivers in the same car. Mikkel Jensen and Jean-Eric Vergne already know each other from the G-Drive Racing LMP2 programme in 2020, where Vergne actually was putting in a good word regarding his Danish teammate, during the selection process for the French manufacturer.
Rossiter and Vergne are already employees of the PSA group, where they participates in the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship for DS Techeetah as test driver and race driver respectively. Vergne is a double champion in the electric series for DS.
