Olivier Jansonnie, technical director on the 9X8 programme at Peugeot Sport, described the third place for Mikkel Jensen, Paul di Resta and Jean-Eric Vergne in Sunday’s Monza 6 Hours as “quite logical and well deserved”.
He explained that it followed the increase in competitiveness of a car that has struggled since its debut at the corresponding WEC race last year. The year-on-year improvement was already evident in practice and qualifying at Monza.
“It’s huge because we have been racing for one year now and we have had a lot of disappointment since the beginning of the programme,” he said.
“I said earlier in the week that a podium was possible and it has become real: it is a big thing for the team for sure.
“It gives an extra boost to the team and shows that we are improving,” said Jansonnie.
“We have seen since the beginning of the weekend that we have much more pace than the first races. We knew from free practice that our stints in the race would be quite good.
“We also knew that to achieve this result we had to do an almost perfect race, and that’s what we did.”
Jansonnie conceded that the third-placed 9X8 lost some competitiveness in the latter stages of the race on the way to finishing 1m18s down on the winning Toyota, but he explained that it was too early to say why, prior to a thorough analysis.
Source: Autosport