Circumstances beyond the manufacturer’s control have led to the abandonment of its avant-garde 9X8 concept, but that doesn’t mean it was wrong to take its original path
GARY WATKINS
It seemed somehow incongruous given what we knew was coming. The sight of a Peugeot heading the chase of the leader over a full race distance in the World Endurance Championship season-opener in Qatar earlier this month was a first, and also a bit strange. That was because it was the soon-to-be-replaced original version of the 9X8, a car that had previously only shown flashes of speed, posting the starring performance. But its pace in the desert proved exactly why the French manufacturer had no choice but to abandon the wingless concept of its first stab at a Le Mans Hypercar.
The avant-garde Peugeot worked around the Losail International Circuit in a way it never had before. The combination of a track layout with a high proliferation of medium to fast corners, and a surface that was both billiard-table smooth and what is described as low energy, made it a happy hunting ground for a car that had previously finished no better than third. The Mk1 9X8 would have bowed out with a career-high second position but for a few missing litres of fuel.
The problem for Peugeot is that not every circuit on the WEC trail is like Losail. The 9X8 was brought into the competitive fray with the help of the Balance of Performance, but the question remains whether it would have been able to accommodate an outlier in the WEC Hypercar field across a range of circuits. Uniquely, the old Pug ran equal-size front and rear tyres of 31cm width, rather than 29cm fronts and 34cm rears to which it has now switched to bring it in line with its rivals.
Peugeot’s Olivier Jansonnie believes that with the revised system in force this year, with a new methodology and a greater range of adjustment, it would have been possible. But on the other hand, he admits that in Qatar the 9X8 was in a “corner of adjustment” on BoP. There, he is essentially pointing out that the car was down at the minimum weight possible, 1030kg, and up at the maximum power permitted, 520kW or 697bhp.
Sticking with the original car was a risk that Peugeot couldn’t take, Jansonnie acknowledges. Switching to the wider rears and narrower fronts was the only way to “get rid of the trap” in which it found itself.
The new car, complete with a rear wing, will no doubt please the naysayers. There were many who proclaimed, “How long before we see a rear wing on the thin
