Peugeot will have a new version of its car in 2024

The rumor of a Peugeot  Hypercar redesigned in 2024 is no longer one. Jean-Marc Finot, vice-president of motorsport at Stellantis, confirmed to the press on the occasion of the 8 Hours of Bahrain, final of the 2023 season of WEC, that a new version of the 9X8 will be on track next season, confirming at the same time the change in riding tires, switching to 29/34 rubbers, like the other manufacturers.

“I will summarize the history of the current design of the car, a started Jean-Marc Finot in preamble. We are committed to a LMH extension at the end of 2019 and we therefore started to design the car even though the regulations provided at that time that a LMH extension hybrid four-wheel drive was to be equipped with 31/31 tires. This is how we started to design it. However, we saw that the potential of 29/34 was better than that of 31/31. We asked the FIA ​​at the end of 2020 whether they were open or closed to 29/34 tires. This led to a change in the regulations in March 2021, banning 29/34 for LMH extension four-wheel drive hybrids, which led us to design our car by optimizing 31/31, with a perfect balance of masses at the front and rear. Unfortunately, around October, at the request of other competitors, the LMH extension were authorized to 29/34. For us, it was too late. »

Jean-Marc Finot took the opportunity to explain that the Performance Balance (Bop) did not meet the manufacturer's expectations. « So we had to stick to the design and architecture of the car, continues Jean-Marc Finot. We thought that the Bop might be able to handle the differences between LMH extension 29/34 and 31/31. Unfortunately, after a year, we see that it does not currently meet our expectations, knowing that we have designed a car with a hybrid system deployment speed of 120 km/h which we cannot take advantage of. (this one was set at 150 km/h until the 6 Hours of Fuji where it was lowered to 130 lm/h. Editor's note). So we made the decision to redesign the car. It's a shame because it's expensive, but we will come back with a strong evolution next season in order to enjoy 29/34 tires. »

Rear spoiler or no rear spoiler on the Peugeot?

This modification involvesis it the arrival of a rear wing on 9 × 8 ? Jean-Marc Finot maintains the mystery. « For the tire works well, we need to increase the weight in the rear to get the wider rear tire to work in the correct window, which means we need to move the center of gravity of the car back, explains the French engineer. And we must do the same with its aerodynamic center. This means we need to increase downforce at the rear and decrease it at the front. There are several ways to achieve this. I will keep the surprise. »

As we had already announced, it is not certain that this Peugeot 9 × 8 new look will be in competition from the opening of the 2024 season at the 1 km of Qatar (Doha, March 812). The question of a new approval of the car or the use of jokers allowing its evolution still arises. Discussions with the FIA ​​and theACO are still ongoing on this subject.

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