GARY WATKINS
WEC
Peugeot has finally confirmed sportscar racing’s worst-kept secret of the winter with the release of images of the updated version of its 9X8 Le Mans Hypercar – complete with a rear wing. The French manufacturer had revealed last November that it was overhauling the avant-garde concept of its World Endurance Championship contender, but it had tried to keep the world guessing on whether it would incorporate a conventional wing at the back for the first time.
The addition of a what is a low-slung wing follows a change of tyre dimensions for the revised car, which will come on stream at round two of this year’s WEC at Imola on 21 April. A machine known simply as the 9X8 2024 runs 29cm wide tyres at the front and 34cm rubber at the rear, as opposed to the 31cm all round of the original car that entered competition midway through the 2022 season.
The rear wing is a natural consequence of the change: the Peugeot Sport design team has pushed both the weight distribution and the aerodynamic loads rearward as part of the revised concept. “Everything is driven by the tyre dimensions, changing the weight distribution to be much more rearward than the previous version of the car and changing the aero balance,” said technical director Olivier Jansonnie. The car generates a larger proportion of its downforce from the upper body surfaces, rear wing included, than its predecessor, which relied more on its underfloor aerodynamics.
The latest Peugeot LMH – which was unveiled in a new livery, the third since it started racing – retains the family look of its predecessor. But Jansonnie revealed that his design team had “touched 90 to 95% of the surfaces of the car”. The windscreen and the airscoop are among the few visible parts carried over.
“It was one of the challenges, one of the constraints we had was that we wanted to keep the overall look of the car,” he explained. “It is interesting that you can achieve quite a substantially different aero concept with surfaces that are changed but all looking very similar.”
The 9X8 2024 retains the monocoque and the crash structures of the mk1 version. That means it does not count as a new car, an option available to Peugeot in the LMH rulebook. Rather, it has taken advantage of the evo joker rules that allow a
