Peugeot 9×8: big debut at Monza this week

Pilot 18.07.2022 0 Comments
Peugeot 408 9x8

The Peugeot 9×8 will make its first race this week, just under a year from the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans, which is its ultimate goal.

We had not seen a Peugeot in endurance competition since 2011, and the lionesses were then powered by a V12 diesel engine. Times have changed a lot since then, and the two 9x8s lined up next Sunday at the 6 Hours of Monza in the Le Mans Hypercar category have a twin-turbo V6 petrol unit backed up by an electric motor, for a combined power of 680 horsepower, all powered by a synthetic fuel developed by TotalEnergies.

Monza is an extremely fast circuit, almost 5.8 km long and punctuated by 11 corners. This race is the first stage of a year of preparations for the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2023, the centenary edition which will see Peugeot scrap with Toyota, Porsche, Ferrari or even Cadillac (non-exhaustive list). Beautiful people, then.

The Monza event, the fourth round of the FIA ​​World Endurance Championship, will therefore allow Peugeot to calibrate itself, knowing that the cars have already totaled 15,000 km of tests (for information, the cars cover approximately 5,400 km during the 24 Hours of Le Mans), including a 36-hour “exercise” conducted on the Motorland Aragon circuit in Spain.

new Peugeot 408 9x8
5 meters long, 2.08 wide and 1.18 high for the Peugeot 9×8, given for 1,030 kilos. The 680 hp are transmitted to all four wheels via a 7-speed sequential gearbox.

“The drivers and the team are going to reach a new level: to evolve in the race, against the competition, to respect an extremely precise sequence over the whole weekend, but also to discover the behavior of our car in traffic, with the set of race procedures and safety measures… Our roadmap at Monza is simple: to give the best, with humility but without timidity. sums up Olivier Jansonnie, Technical Director of Peugeot Sport.

The cars will carry the numbers 93 and 94. The first will be driven by Paul Di Resta, Mikkel Jensen and the Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne (double Formula E champion 2018-2019), and the second by Loïc Duval (the Frenchman notably won Le Mans in 2013 with Audi), Gustavo Menezes and James Rossiter.

Finally, note that the new Peugeot 408 will make its first public appearance on the Monza circuit, during a parade on the track at 11.45 a.m.