Last month’s double-points round of the WEC at Le Mans was described as “a turning point” for the Peugeot 9X8 Le Mans Hypercar programme by its technical director, Olivier Jansonnie, straight after the race.
But Jansonnie stressed ahead of the post-Le Mans resumption of the WEC at Monza this weekend that the 9X8 still lacks the consistent pace of its rivals in the Hypercar class.
“Podiums are the target for us; we are clearly working on that, but it will be difficult considering the level of the opposition,” he said.
“I think we showed at Le Mans that on some occasions and in some specific conditions we are able to fight with the top guys.
“We showed that we are able to fight at that level for some hours of the race with the #94 car [driven by Gustavo Menezes, Loic Duval and Nico Muller], but it could have been the other car as well.
“We are not in the position performance-wise where we can say that if we do the perfect race we will for sure be on the podium.
“But if we can do a perfect race strategy-wise and reliability-wise, we think we can fight for a podium.”
Jansonnie conceded that over the second half of the race at Le Mans the 9X8 was “missing a bit of pace” to its rivals.
“It was a very complicated race for the first eight to 10 hours with the weather and different strategies,” he said.
“In that little game we came out quite well and managed to keep the car at the front.
Source: Autosport