A strong preparation at Fuji for Team TotalEnergies despite a disappointing qualifying session

·       Team Peugeot TotalEnergies 2nd and 4th of the FP3

·       The two PEUGEOT 9X8 will start on the 5th and 6th row on the grid

·       Team PEUGEOT TotalEnergies will be back on track tomorrow from 4am CEST for the 6 Hours of Fuji

The 6 Hours of Fuji weekend, penultimate round of the 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship, started as usual by three free practices sessions. During those sessions the PEUGEOT 9X8 #93 and #94 continued to improve on a track with changing conditions ending the FP3 P2 (#94) and P4 (#93) this Saturday morning.

Followed by the qualifying session this afternoon, the track was declared wet by race control. Mikkel Jensen at the wheel of the #93 PEUGEOT 9X8 and Loïc Duval at the wheel of the #94 took the track for a 15-minutes session with slick tyres, in tricky conditions making the tyres pressure management a challenge.

Despite a good start of the session and great efforts, the two PEUGEOT 9X8 had their 4th lap times deleted for track limits. Then, three minutes before the end of the qualifying, the rain came back on the Fuji Speeday preventing Mikkel Jensen and Loïc Duval from setting better lap times. The PEUGEOT 9X8 #93 will start tomorrow’s race on 10th position (1:26.898) followed by the #94 on 11th position (1:31.822).

Team Peugeot TotalEnergies will be back on track tomorrow from 4am CEST (11am local time) for the 6 Hours of Fuji. You can follow the PEUGEOT 9X8 live on social media and the FIA WEC digital platforms.

WHAT THEY SAID

Jean-marc Finot – Stellantis Motorsport Senior VP : “Our qualifying session did not meet our expectations, we finished P10 and P11. We struggled to get our tyres in the right window for both our cars and in particular the #94 which had a lock up and we had to change the tyres. When it started to rain, it prevented us from setting better lap times. The stakes will be different tomorrow during the race and the difficulties we faced during the qualifying won’t be the same.”

Mikkel Jensen – #93: “It’s great to be racing in Japan, and an honour to be here with PEUGEOT. The fans here are awesome. We had very tricky conditions for the qualifying and we struggled with our tyre pressure. It was very hard in these conditions, but the race is six hours so tomorrow will be different. The conditions might be different as well and our guys showed to be quite good in the wet so if it does rain, I think it could play in our favour so we will see how it goes tomorrow.”

Loïc Duval – #94: “The qualifying for the #94 was tricky. Unfortunately, at the beginning I had a lock up and we had to change the tyres to optimise our performance. After that, it started to rain in some sectors and it was impossible for us to set a good time due to the bad track conditions, which is unfortunate. Now we have to analyse everything to stay in the game for tomorrow’s race.”

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