There was a Peugeot for a while at Le Mans

Le Mans This is its natural habitat. It is your home, your environment and your people. there, Peugeot made history in 1992 and 1993also in 2009, in the edition of 24 Hours where he reigned with Marc Gené with the 908 diesel prototype, ending 5 years of Audi dominance. At Le Mans, people don’t forget, and in the last two editions, it’s not unusual to go to the French team shop and see an endless queue at any time of the day. It is their signature, that of home, national pride and also a great attraction for many tourists who visit the mythical event from all over the world. But since Peugeot returned last year to the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the main category, they have failed to shine. The legendary event, the world’s toughest on asphalt, is cruel to the aspirations of a mythical, iconic brand that wants to win again.

That’s part of the beauty behind the successes. How hard it is to get to the top. They will not throw in the towel and will try again in 2025 after making an important and important step in the 2024 test, which was held a few weeks ago at the La Sarthe Circuit.

In a Endurance World Cup which was reborn with the arrival of many official brands (eight joined Toyota) in the highest category of the current regulations, in the class of Hypercars, the competitiveness is enormous. There, the lion still has to fight to show its claws. Peugeot struggled with this 92nd edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans against Ferrari, Toyota, Porsche, Cadillac, BMW, Lamborghini, Alpine and Isotta Frasschini and held the Top-10 in both his cars.

The project began with reliability problems on its return to the tracks late in the 2022 championship and also in 2023. And Peugeot stood out as such in its return to Le Mans last year with the aim of a Top -5 to reach if possible after leading to the rain in the centenary edition with a car that is surprising due to its lack of a rear wing. But in the end they can’t choose it. A year later, Peugeot reached the Top 10 with a car that showed great reliability, without any setbacks in the race, something very difficult.as the other side of the coin for the French makes clear: Alpine’s double abandonment in the first 6 hours of the race for failures in their vehicles. Le Mans is unforgiving and Peugeot has made big strides in this regard. But now you need more in terms of performance and competitiveness of your 9X8.

Confidence in the project: they want to go ahead and win

In that sense, MD chatted at Le Mans at a round table with him Linda Jackson, CEO of Peugeot, and Jean-Marc Finot, senior vice president of Stellantis Motorsport. “I want to win, eh, Jean-Marc…”, Linda said with a laugh to Finot in the middle of that meeting. But both made it clear that this is a long-term path and they continue to trust in a project that they consider necessary to present themselves to the world.

This year, Peugeot changed cars and showed a new prototype at Imola, with a rear spoiler, but the fact of having a new car that the course has already started and received FIA homologation means that they first penalized by BoP , the equivalent system used to increase equality by limiting the weight and power of vehicles. After difficult races in Imola and Spa, Linda Jackson sent a serious warning about the future of the brand in the World Endurance Championship: “we cannot continue in a sport like this for ten years without winning. This is an important investment. After three years, we need to get results”he argued after the first races.

And Peugeot returns to Le Mans in 2023 after three intense years of rebuilding its competition structure from scratch, with a clear and concise, very ambitious plan. But examples like Ferrari, which returned to the top category of Le Mans in 2023 after 50 years of not winning (it also succeeded in 2024), or Porsche, which fought for victory in its second year, showed in Peugeot that quick wins are possible. and they must react.

In this field, Linda Jackson wants to make it clear that there is no doubt about the commitment to the project and that it is necessary to continue the study.

“When you make the decision to enter a program like this, you are in it for a long time because you have to learn. And every year you learn and it’s important that we learn,” he said, reinforcing the brand’s commitment to the WEC. (World Endurance Championship).

“I want to win, Jean Marc… (laughs) you know, but if you invest in this kind of program, you have to accept that, starting in 2019, you have made a substantial investment, and therefore, you have to time to learn, and you learn from your mistakes and you learn from the good things that happen, And that’s what you should do,” he added.

Why continue? Marketing, laboratory and achievements

After this, Linda wanted to explain the importance of Le Mans for Peugeot, not only for the French market, but for being a global showcase to continue to shine and grow in many markets.

“We are a French brand so being here is very special for the French. But I also learned a very good statistic: about 35 to 40% of visitors to Le Mans are international, and among them, 50 % are British. So why did we enter the WEC? Because we are an international brand and this contest has races all over the world.. Le Mans is special if you’re French or a French brand, but, you know… the guys out there, the drivers, the manufacturers, the cars you’re looking at now They form perhaps the best lineup of all time. As far as we go, it’s very competitive. And it’s very, very popular in the United States, for example. I traveled to six of the eight races on the course and I was in Fuji (Japan) last year and they talked about Le Mans. I did a lot of interviews with some Chinese influencers with 200 million followers talking about Le Mans. In China they know Le Mans. So being here is amazing, and also because it’s our land, so you can imagine the passion we have and the pressure, a little bit of pressure too.”he argued, giving peace of mind to the project with Finot.

“It’s a very important marketing tool for us, in addition to being a laboratory, because it’s clear that there’s technology that we’ve learned from Peugeot Sport that we can put into our own production cars.. We are present in many countries and have races in all these places, in all these regions it is very important now to spread our name and to let people know what Peugeot is all about, not just the cars, but the quality of the cars and the engineering skills of the cars. We decided to get into this and like I said before, when you got into a show in 2019 you do it to really establish yourself. But in the end we want to win. So naturally, we all want to win. And that is our goal. We are not here just to be enemies. “We want to win, and that’s really what it’s all about,” Linda said.

“The decision we made was to commit until 2026. Then, with the new visibility of the championship, we will consider more”added Finot, at his side.

Finto, sure the car will win

“We had the most competitive 24 hours of Le Mans in history. We’ve never seen a race like this. Maybe not just for Le Mans, but for all of motorsport or car racing. I don’t remember races with 15 cars capable of winning and no one could predict. So we are very happy to be part of this golden era and to write some historical pages of Le Mans.”he pointed out Fine For his part, apologizes to the MD: “we have to consider that we have a new car. This car got a new homologation. And when you have a new approval of the car you have a certain weight position and power (via the aforementioned BoP), and then you’ll have some adjustments. Right now it’s too early to enjoy this setting. But the car will catch up with the work of the engineers and also with that configuration.”. They want to return in 2025 with the intention of fighting for victory. “Worried? never”End of Finot in this newspaper. The lion wants to roar again.