A lion has a wing! The improved racing Peugeot 9X8 wants to finally conquer Le Mans this year – Garáž.cz

It was a bold, innovative concept that certainly worked great on paper, but like so many others before it, it didn’t take off in the harsh reality of track battles.

The Peugeot 9X8 was designed to make more efficient use of the airflow under the car and thus dispense with the rear wing that would slow it down on the straights. But it turned out that the asphalt of the racing circuits is not as smooth as the engineers imagined, and the 9X8 did not have as much grip in the corners as it needed. Peugeot Sport, willy-nilly, had to proceed with a radical change…

And here you can see the rear of the newly introduced racer – the large wing is more sensitively integrated into the body, so it doesn’t protrude as much into the space as the competition. Nevertheless, it is unmissable. Its integration into the car’s aerodynamic solution meant redesigning 90% of the entire bodywork, which was quite a challenging project for the team.

At the same time, Peugeot Sport changed the choice of tires (wide 29 cm at the front and 34 cm at the rear, previously all four had the same width of 31 cm), along with this a number of components had to be changed to lower the center of gravity of the car. However, the basis is the same chassis, even if the changes were really extensive.

How extensive and how fast did the new car go? Of course, none of the racing engineers will tell you this, because it is a closely guarded secret. Peugeot Sport has thus prepared a surprise for the competition when the renewed Peugeot 9X8 goes to the racing circuit in Imola, Italy at the end of April for the second event of the FIA ​​WEC series this year.

Let us remind you that the 24h of Le Mans is being held this year on the weekend of June 15 and 16. and Peugeot will compete there with the long-term successful Toyota, last year’s winner from Ferrari, Porsche, which won the first race of this year’s WEC, and other challengers from Alpine, BMW, Lamborghini, Cadillac or the newly revived Isotta-Fraschini stable. In total, there will be more than two dozen “hypercars” at the start. That will be a carving!