Peugeot has revealed a heavily revised version of its 9X8 endurance racer, which now gets a crucial addition – a rear wing. The original 9X8 hypercar sported a radical design with no rear wing. However, Peugeot has admitted that the new regulations necessitated shifting to a more conventional design.
- New 9X8 to compete in rest of 2024 WEC
- Around 90 percent of bodywork revised
Why did Peugeot revise the 9X8?
Since returning to the top flight of the World Endurance Championship in 2022, Peugeot has finished no higher than third place. The original 9X8 was developed to meet the technical regulations drawn up in 2020/2021. However, the regulations evolved significantly by the time the carmaker made its competitive debut on track.
“We made choices that are no longer the right ones now and this difference in performance was not sufficiently offset by the BOP (Balance of Performance) in 2023. The idea was therefore to go back to a car design that is similar that of our rivals’ car design, so that it would then be given equivalent treatment by the BOP.” explained Olivier Jansonnie, Peugeot Sport Technical Director.
The original 9X8 used equal width 31cm front and rear tyres. However, the new version uses 29cm front tyres and 34cm rear tyres. “For the tyres to work effectively, we had to alter the centre of gravity of the Peugeot 9X8, which meant moving certain components and making others lighter. And in order to have a better aerodynamic balance, we also had to look at redistributing the aerodynamic loads, which resulted in us redesigning approximately 90 percent of the bodywork components, most notably adding the rear wing,” said Jansonnie.
“As well as all this, we decided to use this new homologation to add some reliability and performance upgrades to give us the best opportunities in the championship.”
New Peugeot 9X8 to make competitive debut at Imola
The revised Peugeot 9X8 will be used for the rest of the 2024 World Endurance Championship, which features the fabled 24 Hours of Le Mans race. It will make its competitive debut Round 2 of the championship, the 6 Hours of Imola, on April 21.
Dinshaw Magol
