The wingless iteration of the 9X8 made its final WEC bow in Saturday’s Qatar 1812Km event at the Losail International Circuit ahead of being replaced by a more conventional design from April’s Six Hours of Imola.
A second-place result appeared to be on the cards until Jean-Eric Vergne slowed down on track on the penultimate lap after the #93 Peugeot ran out of fuel, forcing him to coast to the finish line on hybrid power alone.
Although Vergne was able to drag the hobbled Peugeot to the line and provisionally finish a lap down in seventh, the car he shared with Mikkel Jensen and Nico Muller was later excluded from the results for both failing to return to the pits after the fuel drama and not reaching the parc ferme on its own power.
However, the disqualification did not dampen the spirits of the French manufacturer, with its motorsport boss Jean-Marc Finot praising the team for the work they put in to get the car into a podium position.
“So far we are very happy that the '23 car was fast and was in the game,” Finot told reporters.
”With the power we got and with the weight we got, it means that the design of this car, that has been designed on the '21 regulation, is okay. I'm proud of what the team did.
“This weekend the operation was quite okay. We didn't expect to lead the race in the first hour or to fight for the podium or the victory.
“Unfortunately, what happened on the last lap was not scheduled. We had an issue with the feeling of the car when we did the splash-and-dash. We didn't have the expected weight of fuel.”
The Peugeot 9X8 was designed with the original LMH regulations in mind, which were later tweaked to enable a direct convergence with the LMDh cars and allow both types of machinery to compete against each in the WEC and the IMSA SportsCar Championship.
This partly contributed to Peugeot going back to the drawing board and ditching its 31cm wheels in favour of the 29cm-front/34cm-rear option that Toyota also adopted with its GR010 HYBRID and is standard on all LMDh cars.
The Stellantis brand has also added a rear wing to the revised 9X8, which now looks set to make its debut on the WEC’s visit to Italy on 28 April.
Finot likened Peugeot’s late-race trouble to the issue that denied Toyota a victory at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2016, when Kamui Kobayashi similarly crawled to a halt on the start/finish straight just minutes from the end of the race.
“It reminds me [of] Le Mans 2016,” he said. “We have to make digestion of that.
“We will be back in Imola with the thinking that the car could be competitive with the '24 design. It will depend upon the weight and the power we will have, but we are on the [right path].”
Peugeot enjoyed its most competitive showing in sportscar racing since its return to the WEC in the middle of the 2022 season, with both factory cars looking rapid over a single lap and long runs throughout the Qatar week.
It had previously scored just a single podium in the top class of the WEC, with Vergne, Jensen and Paul di Resta finishing third at Monza last year in the #93 9X8.
Finot put Peugeot’s improved pace down to both a Balance of Performance break at the start of the season and the unique nature of the Losail circuit, which features long sweeping corners and freshly-laid asphalt.
“This track has very less low-speed corners where we are missing traction with our 31cm width tyres, far less than in Fuji or Bahrain,” he explained.
“It's also a very smooth tarmac so we can enjoy all the ground effect without any perturbation and without any porpoising risk. Like Monza, like Le Mans, it's the kind of track that suits the ‘23 design very well.
“There was something coming from the BoP on the weight and the power we enjoyed. Also the configuration of the track is huge and better suiting to the car.”
Absolutely heartbreaking for @peugeotsport... 💔#WEC #Qatar1812KM pic.twitter.com/90l7zJ7Dvc
— FIA World Endurance Championship (@FIAWEC) March 2, 2024
