One year after its Hypercar debut, Team Peugeot TotalEnergies claims its first podium
3rd place for the #93 PEUGEOT 9X8 of Jean-Eric Vergne, Mikkel Jensen and Paul Di Resta
The sixth round of the FIA WEC will take place at Fuji Speedway from the 8th September.
A 35-car grid at the 6 Hours of Monza took on the Temple of Speed at 12h30, in front of thousands of fans, more than 65 000 over the weekend. Mikkel Jensen, at the wheel of the #93 PEUGEOT 9X8 and Nico Müller onboard the #94 took a great start, avoiding the incidents at turn one and the two Team Peugeot TotalEnergies drivers managed to gain several positions.
The #93 PEUGEOT 9X8 stayed in the lead trio for most of the race, even leading the Italian round at some points fighting with Toyota and Ferrari, the two favourites of the race. Mikkel Jensen, then Jean-Eric Vergne and Paul Di Resta had a clean race, keeping a constant pace facing the harsh competition. After making its debuts on this same track last season, Team Peugeot TotalEnergies claims its very first podium of the Hypercar era with Paul Di Resta crossing the finish line in third position.
For the #94 PEUGEOT 9X8, the race, that was interrupted by three safety cars, did not go as hoped despite a very strong pace. After a good start of Nico Muller, Gustavo Menezes started to have acceleration problems and had to pit to make changes on the gear box. The car went back on track quickly but at the back of the Hypercar pack. Loïc Duval took the wheel for the end of the race and gave it all to gain some positions. The French driver took the chequered flag in 11th position.
Those 6 Hours of Monza and this podium is the result of the hard work and dedication the whole team have put in for several months. The reliability and the performance of the PEUGEOT 9X8 showed that it can now fight with the front runners of the FIA World Endurance Championship.
The sixth round of the FIA WEC will take place in Fuji (Japan) from the 8th September and after a well deserved summer break for the whole Team Peugeot TotalEnergies.
WHAT THEY SAID
Olivier Jansonnie – Peugeot Sport technical Director : “This result is quite logical when you look at the pace we had during the free practices. We also knew that to achieve this result we had to do an almost perfect race and that’s what we did. The #93 is on the podium but it’s a real team effort. The #94 was also very competitive and allowed Peugeot Sport to gather some important data. It could have ended on the podium as well without its technical problem that reminds us how hard this sport is. We came back here to Monza, one year after our difficult debut and we worked a lot to get this result that gives an extra boost to the team and shows that we are improving. On a sporting point of view, we still have two positions to gain, and we have two races to do it so here is our new goal for the end of the season.”
Jean-Eric Vergne – #93: “I’m extremely happy about this podium, our first one together in Hypercar with PEUGEOT. We had a rough start at the beginning of the season, but the team has been working relentlessly and this podium shows that all the hard work is starting to pay off. It will motivate us even more to keep working this hard, to get more of this kind of result and hopefully a win before the end of the season, it will be amazing. “
Paul Di Resta – #93: “After Le Mans, we had such a great positive energy. The teamwork has been incredible to get the car ready for this race, I know how hard it’s been. We did not have a straightforward weekend, but we managed to turn it around. Mikkel had a good start, JEV did a really good job yesterday in qualifying, we stayed steady, and I think we’ve done a really good job. Now we are heading into summer break, we still have some work to do but well done to the whole team.”
Mikkel Jensen – #93: “I would not say we expected this result when we started this weekend but in practice sessions we saw that we had good pace and it all came together today. We had a great start, moved up positions and it was all about staying out front, managing the tyres, not making any bad decisions. I think we managed to avoid every mistake and that’s why we are on the podium.”
Gustavo Menezes – #94: “Obviously it was a frustrating race, I’m still super happy to see the sister car in the top 3. Other than that, I think we had a pretty solid pace on track, we had a shifter issue at the end of Nico’s run, we though that we could endure it but unfortunately after a couple of laps I had to come back to the pits as I could not accelerate. At that point on track the pace was really good but obviously there is not much that we could do so we kept racing, tried to keep it clean and kept learning for the next race.”
