Peugeot is currently unsure if it its new Le Mans Hypercar will be contesting the 2022 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The French manufacturer launched its groundbreaking, wingless Hypercar last week, along with confirmation that it will race in the 2022 FIA World Endurance Championship but without mentioning any further details.
During a launch event for the car for selected media at the FIA WEC round at Monza, the French manufacturer clarified that is it not yet committing to a concrete debut date until the car has completed sufficient on-track testing.
Olivier Jansonnie, Peugeot’s Technical Director for its WEC programme, explained to MotorsportWeek.com that the team is not willing to go to Le Mans prematurely if the car is not sufficiently developed.
“Obviously, there is an interest from us to try to go to Le Mans as soon as possible,” he said. “We also need to go there with a lot of maturity of all that is sufficient to help us with gathering information. There’s no point going there and running for three hours and pulling the garage door. We need to be really confident that we can in good reliability condition to drive.”
The testing programme with the 9X8 will start in December, later this year. According to Jansonnie, the outcomes from its testing programme will determine when the debut will take place, which is also why Peugeot has not set a concrete date for its competitive debut.
Jansonnie also underlined that the target for Peugeot remains to race in the WEC in 2022, but would not go into details as to which races it would commit to and hinting that Peugeot’s factory effort for the 2022 season would not be a full-time one.
“It does, it won’t be justly,” he said. “I don’t think the first test in december will give us the answer on that. I’ll think we’ll have [to see] how the car progresses in testing in spring time, but generally, that’s it. The results on track will tell us when we can enter the WEC.”
“The target is definitely with no change to run in the WEC in 2022, most likely doing a few races [in the year].”
