Linda Jackson herself gives the start on this July Sunday at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza. It is a hot summer’s day, the asphalt is scorching and dust hangs in the air. The grandstands are half full at best when racing gets under way at 2 p.m. – not Formula 1, but a round of the WEC, top-class yet less in the spotlight.
For Peugeot CEO Linda Jackson it is a big moment: with the 9X8, the marque enters an endurance race for the first time in more than ten years. After 10,000 test kilometres clocked up by the Peugeot Sport team on five different circuits since mid-June, the lion now has to show more than just its teeth. The outing is taken seriously, even if it is only a prelude – a prelude to the big show in June 2023, when Peugeot lines up the hypercar for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Built for the Job
The Peugeot 9X8 is homologated as an LMH car under the regulations of the FIA’s new hypercar class. In plain terms: hybrid power. Ahead of the rear axle sits a 265-kilo, 2.6-litre biturbo making 680 hp; behind the front axle, a 200 kW electric motor with generator. Wedged between driver and combustion engine are a 90-litre fuel tank and a 900-volt battery. After the 905 with its naturally aspirated 3.5-litre V10 and the 908 with its adventurous V12 diesel, it is now a hybrid that is meant to bring the laurels home.
On the drivetrain, the LMH rules impose little: a rev limit of 10,000 rpm and a drive-by noise ceiling of 110 decibels, plus a minimum engine weight and set torque and power figures. Peak output lies between 653 and 707 hp. How much is actually allowed is decided by the Balance of Performance, which evens out the cars’ differences through engine power – keeping the field tight and the racing close. In normal running it is 680 hp at most; only in clearly defined situations does the electric motor unleash a boost of up to 707 hp. For that moment, the 9X8 becomes all-wheel drive.
That the 9X8 is a hybrid is no accident, Linda Jackson explains. On one hand, the LMH rules require the combination of combustion and electric power; on the other, the technology ties in with series production. By now the CEO has joined fans, team members and journalists in the grandstand. Going racing, she says, may look like a contradiction in an age of ecological thinking – but it isn’t. Because it lets Peugeot prove that it takes electrification seriously. And what better way to show that hybrid technology works than a 700-hp race car that withstands hours of extreme stress?
The 9X8 is thus also a showcase of expertise for everyone involved – and there are many: an LMH car is made up of at least 10,000 parts. The combustion engine comes from Peugeot; the battery was developed by Peugeot Sport together with Saft, a subsidiary of the French energy group TotalEnergies. The car’s on-board «intelligence», which manages all the energy, comes from Peugeot Sport Engineered, the division also responsible for the marque’s sporty road cars. The motor-generator unit on the front axle was developed jointly with the Italian electric-motor specialist Marelli.
That Monza was chosen for the lion’s first appearance also has a historical backdrop: it was here, exactly fifteen years ago, that the 908 HDi, the LMP1 diesel experiment, made its debut – Peugeot’s striking return to endurance racing after years away. Now, as the autodrome marks its centenary, the team is back. The two cars, numbers 93 and 94, race against the established teams of Alpine, Toyota and Glickenhaus. Even in practice the cars struggled with technical issues; number 94 kept returning to the garage.
«If there’s a problem with a car, we have 60 to 90 seconds to work out a strategy and prepare the parts and tools», explains Thomas Desforges, chief mechanic on car number 94. And that is exactly what happens too often. The garage of number 93 – the car of Paul di Resta, Mikkel Jensen and Jean-Éric Vergne – will not leave the pit lane again: for them, the race is over. Two hours later the victorious Alpine A480 crosses the line after a little over six hours.
On the Right Track
The remaining Peugeot 9X8 finishes 25 laps down. And yet drivers Loïc Duval, Gustavo Menezes and James Rossiter are satisfied to have completed the race distance. «We’re on the right track», sums up Rossiter. He would be proved right: at the second race in Fuji, Japan, the two Peugeots still bring up the rear, but with far fewer problems than at Monza. A few days later, Peugeot signs a new works driver for number 93 – the young Swiss Nico Müller, moving over from the DTM. Next June, he is to drive the lion to fresh success at Le Mans.
This article appeared in MEN issue 2/22 (November 2022).
