GARY WATKINS
WEC
Peugeot will wait until round two of the World Endurance Championship at Imola in April to give a debut to the heavily revised 2024-spec version of its 9X8 Le Mans Hypercar. Racing the car at the season-opener in Qatar at the start of next month was never an option.
The widely expected move was confirmed last week by Peugeot Sport technical director Olivier Jansonnie. He explained that the homologation requirements in LMH precluded an early debut of a car that has undergone a radical overhaul after the decision to abandon the equal-size tyres front and rear of the original 9X8.
“We knew from the start that we couldn’t make it [the homologation of the revised car] in February,” said Jansonnie. “The reason is that with this homologation process when you do a joker, you can’t just do half of the job, you have to do it fully, and that takes time to make sure you maximise the effect of your joker. We know that the level of competition was very high last year and will be even higher this year, so it is very important for us to bring something that is making a clear step forward in terms of performance.”
Peugeot didn’t announce its decision to change from th
