Peugeot reveals revised 9X8 Le Mans Hypercar with rear wing

First pictures of a automobile referred to as the 9X8 2024 in a brand new livery reveal a standard, if low-line rear wing on a automobile that retains the acquainted look of the unique model, which entered competitors within the remaining three races of the 2022 season.

The addition of the wing, which hadn’t been beforehand confirmed by Peugeot, follows the French producer’s determination to desert the equal width entrance and rear tyres of the mk1 automobile.

Peugeot’s 9X8 now runs 29cm tyres on the entrance and 34cm on the rear like all its opponents within the WEC’s Hypercar class reasonably than the 31/31 of earlier than.

The adoption of the revised tyre dimensions has pressured Peugeot to undertake an enormous overhaul of the avant-garde idea of its LMH.

The 31/31 tyres allowed Peugeot to go for a 50/50 entrance/rear weight distribution, whereas the freedoms within the LMH rulebook meant it might generate a lot of the automobile’s downforce from the underfloor.

Mixed, they allowed it put off the necessity for a standard rear wing.

The load bias of the automobile has now been shifted to the rear and extra downforce comes from the higher physique surfaces, together with the rear wing.

Peugeot Sport technical director Olivier Jansonnie defined that his design staff had “touched 90-95% of the surfaces of the automobile”.

“From the general public’s standpoint it appears similar to the earlier automobile, the automobile appears the identical, simply an add-on of a rear wing,” he stated.

“It was one of many challenges, one of many constraints we had was that we needed to maintain the general look of the automobile.

“It’s attention-grabbing that you may obtain fairly a considerably completely different aero idea with surfaces which are modified however all wanting very the identical.”

Peugeot Totalenergies Peugeot 9X8

Picture by: Peugeot Sport

The 9X8 2024 retains the monocoque and the crash constructions of the unique.

That was necessary, stated Jansonnie, to ensure that Peugeot to keep away from having to do one other crash check as a part of the homologation.

“Preserving the rear [crash structure] was truly a problem with the brand new rear wing; clearly the rear finish is sort of completely different,” he stated. “That was necessary for us from a schedule standpoint.”

The rearward shift in weight distribution has allowed Peugeot to undertake revisions to the automobile’s 2.6-litre twin-turbo V6 and its seven-speed gearbox within the identify of reliability.

Jansonnie revealed that the choice to undertake an enormous overhaul of the 9X8, which incorporates invoking a few of the evo joker efficiency upgrades allowed to LMH and LMDh equipment, was taken final March after the 2023 Sebring 1000 Miles season-opener.

It began testing a mule automobile on the brand new tyres final summer time, however didn’t go public with its plans till the final spherical of the sequence at Bahrain in November.

Jansonnie defined that the motivation to overtake a automobile that has completed no higher than third since Peugeot’s return to top-flight sportscar racing was to make sure the marque was much less reliant on the Steadiness of Efficiency.

“The principle issue for the choice to vary the automobile was to rely much less on the BoP, which we can not management,” he stated.

Peugeot needed to “do one thing that’s placing us a lot nearer when it comes to automobile idea to our competitors, so we might be within the ballpark of efficiency no matter what the BoP is doing”.

Peugeot has not revealed how lots of the 5 evo joker efficiency upgrades it’s allowed over the lifecycle of the 9X8 had been used within the revisions for 2024.