Peugeot wants path to ‘fairness’ in WEC after Le Mans…

Peugeot has said it needs the World Endurance Championship “to find the path that will make it fair for everyone”, in light of the Balance of Performance that made its Le Mans 24 Hours a struggle.

Peugeot was given the worst power-to-weight ratio for the French classic; its 9X8s qualified 17th and 18th, with the #94 car mostly avoiding trouble to take 11th under the chequered flag three laps down. The sister #93 entry was down in 16th.

This was in stark contrast with the WEC’s preceding Spa-Francorchamps race, where Peugeot qualified fourth and seventh and the podium was within reach before a communication error scuppered its strategy.

“Despite not contending for what we could hope for after the Spa race, we remained very focused on the operational side,” Stellantis Motorsport senior vice-president Jean-Marc Finot commented shortly before the end of the race, “and you can see that the #94, with a near-perfect race, got the maximum out of the package.”

Notwithstanding this setback, Finot reaffirmed Peugeot’s commitment to the WEC – but hinted at the current situation not being sustainable for the French brand.

“Our wish is to stay for a long time while being competitive, so the goal is set,” he added. “Then we are in talks to define a path that I cannot describe as of today, as many unknowns remain in the equation.

#94 Peugeot Totalenergies Peugeot 9x8: Loic Duval, Malthe Jakobsen, Stoffel Vandoorne (Photo by: Emanuele Clivati | AG Photo)

“Our goal is to continue, and everyone wants to, as Peugeot’s involvement is an asset for the championship too, but we need to find the path that will make it fair for everyone and possible.

“The good thing is we have bosses who care about sport, who understand the context and can contextualize today’s performance. We’re lucky to have them.”

Meanwhile, Jean-Eric Vergne lamented as tough a race as he expected.

Paul Di Resta crashed the car in the first hour when attempting to overtake an LMGT3 car – though the damage was mostly bodywork and mechanics repaired it in “30 to 40 seconds” – and a rack-and-pinion change cost them “another five to seven minutes” later, on top of the 9X8’s lack of performance.

“The positive thing is the team, despite all this, didn’t give up,” Vergne told Motorsport.com. “The mechanics were great, did great pitstops, great [driver] changes. The problems were solved very quickly.

“This is a team that deserves a winning car now – everyone deserves it, engineers, drivers, mechanics. These are difficult, character-building moments.”

#93 Peugeot Totalenergies Peugeot 9x8: Paul Di Resta, Mikkel Jensen, Jean-Eric Vergne (Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt)

Asked if Peugeot treated the #93 car’s race as a test session after its early trouble, given how unlikely it was to fight its way into the top 10, the French driver said: “No, we always treated it like a race, because it’s the best way to practice – not making mistakes, not getting penalties, pushing as hard as possible. It’s about gaining experience, which will likely be crucial for us when we have a car to win.”

Vergne reckoned Peugeot outperformed its package with the #94 entry, having come up with a 14-lap longer-stint strategy to mitigate its lack of performance, which helped it finish 11th.

He added: “I think you sometimes need to be content with that kind of result, even though it is absolutely not what I like and what I want. We need to be content with it, because that’s what will make us stronger.”

Additional reporting by Basile Davoine