Peugeot is evaluating the introduction of further upgrades to its Le Mans Hypercar in 2025 in order to close the gap to the front in the World Endurance Championship.
The French manufacturer wants to get a full understanding of the potential of the updated 9X8 2024 by the end of the current season in order to determine whether it needs to use more evo jokers for next season.
Asked what Peugeot has to do to improve its fortunes in the Hypercar class, the marque’s technical director Olivier Jansonnie said: “We are looking at the performance of the car right now, obviously until you find something [major] it’s always difficult to know what it was [that needed improving].
“We are looking at various things: we have evaluated and started to pinpoint so many things on the car that need improvement — especially the last two races were quite relevant for that.
“Part of that is for sure set-up, which we can cure, and once we have a clear picture of what we cannot cure with set-up, we will have to look at evos and jokers eventually.”
He added: “Only once you start getting to the point you can see what you are missing and when it’s to evolve in terms of technical package, jokers and homologation.”
Peugeot invoked the first of the five evo joker performance upgrades allowed to it under the initial five-year lifecycle of the 9X8 LMH ahead of its first full season in the WEC in 2023.
#93 Peugeot Totalenergies Peugeot 9X8: Mikkel Jensen, Nico Muller, Jean-Eric Vergne
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
How much of its allocation it has used has not been disclosed and the use of evo jokers is not in the public domain nor shared by the series rule-makers with the manufacturers.
It is unclear whether its shift from equal size wheels and tyres all round to the narrower fronts and wider rears that was at the centre of the 2024 makeover counted as one.
Toyota made the same switch from 31cm tyres to 29 and 34cm with its GR010 HYBRID LMH between the 2021 and ’22 seasons.
It successfully argued that it needed to make the switch as a result of the reduction of minimum weight in LMH that followed the convergence process to allow LMDh machinery into the WEC.
Evo jokers have to be applied for to the rule-makers, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest and the FIA, and are allowed at their discretion.
While the upgrade for 2024 represented a major change in concept, the new 9X8 has not finished higher than eighth in the five races it has contested so far. The previous version of the car logged a podium finish at Monza in 2023.
Jansonnie said it remains to be decided at what point Peugeot could use evo jokers to introduce new parts on the car if it decides to go down that route, but did not rule out the prospect of starting the 2025 season in late February with the new version.
“It’s open again,” he said. “We are looking hard into what could bring us performance. So depending upon the findings we do between now and the end of the year, we will decide what we do.”
Jansonnie wouldn’t be drawn about the scope of the changes when asked if Peugeot would make small tweaks to the car or bring more substantial upgrades.
“It’s impossible to tell until we have the full picture,” he said. “It has to be some balance between how long we can wait before doing something and how much you can gain from doing something quickly. It depends on what we find on track next month [in testing].”
Jansonnie added that “the target is to have a clear picture by the end of November” while the “type” of update will also help in determining the full timeline of the upgraded car.
“You have some quick and easy things that you can design in a couple of weeks, produce the parts in three to four weeks and test them, if you are 100 per cent sure what you are doing,” he said.
“That’s a two, three-month turnaround. There are other options that could be much longer. It’s impossible to answer.”