Olivier Jansonnie: “The team has proven that we can produce accomplished performances and that we are a great racing team!”

A podium and a top-four finish in a large and extremely competitive field, the introduction of a new Hypercar, two cars completing the 24 Hours of Le Mans, three totally unfamiliar tracks, sixth place in the Manufacturers’ championship and 23,739 kilometres covered in races… The 2024 season was an intense experience for Team Peugeot TotalEnergies, which ended the year on a very positive note, suggesting that 2025 may bring more promising results.

For Team Peugeot TotalEnergies, the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship started with a farewell. Farewell to the original, initial version of PEUGEOT 9X8 that contested its eleventh and final Endurance race at Qatar’s Lusail International Circuit on 2 March 2024. A race at which it might have produced a huge upset had it not ran out of fuel at the start of the final lap. “We managed to show a good level of performance, probably the best to date. We had a solid race, but we made a bit of a stupid mistake, running out of fuel combined with several other minor issues all at the same time!” admitted Olivier Jansonnie, Peugeot Sport Technical Director.

Team Peugeot TotalEnergies thus concluded this opening chapter with the initial version of the PEUGEOT 9X8, before beginning a new era with the 2024 version of the PEUGEOT 9X8 at the 6 Hours of Imola, the second round of the season. Around 90% of the components were new on the Hypercar’s bodywork, which now featured a new rear wing. “We tried to resolve the issues we had with downforce and maximum speed, and all the other reliability issues we had in 2022-2023. We managed to do just that. However, the car was completely new in terms of aerodynamics and the dimensions of the tyres and I think we probably underestimated how difficult it would be to get to grips with these new aspects. We had thought we would be able to leverage more what we had learned with the previous car.”

It proved to be something of an inauspicious début for the car on an Italian track unfamiliar to Team Peugeot TotalEnergies and in fairly tricky weather conditions. “With hindsight, the fact we spent so much time developing the car and trying to make it reliable meant that we weren’t able to test it on championship tracks during the winter. So we found ourselves racing on an Imola track that we didn’t really know. Then at Spa-Francorchamps, where we hadn’t done any testing since the previous year. I think this goes a long way to explaining why we had a tough start to the season right up to Le Mans, where we struggled a bit,” continued Olivier Jansonnie.

“At Le Mans, we could tell we were quite far back in terms of performance on the Test Day. We nonetheless managed to produce an honourable performance in the race thanks to very good reliability, one of our targets of the season for Le Mans that we managed to achieve.” With both PEUGEOT 9X8 hypercars making it to the end of the 24 Hours of Le Mans from a total line-up of 23 in the elite class, motivation in the entire team was boosted for the second half of the season. “However, we went back to old ways a little bit and again struggled on tracks that we didn’t know so well. The races in São Paulo and Austin were both very difficult for us, especially in Austin where pretty much everything went wrong: performance, strategy and reliability. I guess it happens sometimes!”

In Fuji and Bahrain, however, the Lions competed on tracks that were familiar, where the team had already raced in 2022 and 2023. “We knew we didn’t have the outright pace, but we knew we had other qualities we could use. In terms of strategy, the idea was to try and survive in the early part of the race, even if that meant losing some ground, by using as few tyres as possibles so we could keep fresh rubber for the closing stages of the race.” This strategy, precisely implemented, helped the no. 93 PEUGEOT 9X8 (Jensen/Müller/Vergne) to finish just shy of the podium in the foothills of Mount Fuji, and then onto the podium in Bahrain. A great way to avenge the second place that Team Peugeot TotalEnergies had missed out on eight months earlier, a hundred or so kilometres away!

“This strategic maturity is undoubtedly one of the major positives from the end of the season. The team has proven that we can produce accomplished performances and that we are a great racing team! As regards performance levels in both aerodynamics and tyres, we have closed the gap to our rivals, who have made plenty of progress throughout the season just with their current cars. In fact, it’s so close in the Hypercar class that the tiniest operating advantage can make a huge difference. For 2025, the target is to fight for podium places on a regular basis, using the data we have gathered this season, especially at circuits that we were previously unfamiliar with. We mustn’t forget that we used quite a lot of resources between April 2023 and February 2024 to prepared for the 2024 season whilst also working on the development of a new car,” concluded Olivier Jansonnie.