After a thrilling 24 Hours of Le Mans, the PEUGEOT 9X8 will carry on their season in Italy
The 6 Hours of Monza, round 5 of the FIA World Endurance Championship from the 7th to the 9th July
The PEUGEOT 9X8 returns to the track where everything started one year ago
After the emotions and performances showed during the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where Team Peugeot TotalEnergies finished 8th and 12th of the Hypercar grid, after leading the race for almost 4 hours, the team went back to work to get ready for the next round in Italy.
The 6 Hours of Monza, 5th round of the FIA World Endurance Championship, will take place from the 7th to 9th of July. The Italian “Temple of Speed” will be the first known track of the season for the #93 and #94 PEUGEOT 9X8 as this is where they made their debut in FIA WEC last year.
For this race, the goals will be to implement the learnings from the 24 Hours of Le Mans and to confirm the improvements of the reliability and the performances of the PEUGEOT 9X8. Moreover, Team Peugeot TotalEnergies will aim to have the same performances seen in Le Mans in order to stay at the top of the grid.
The 5.793km circuit of Monza is well appreciated by the drivers for its history as well as for its technicity. The Italian track is fast, with long straights and with a lot of overtaking opportunities.
Team Peugeot TotalEnergies will be back on track from the 7th of July with the first free practice sessions, followed by the qualifying on Saturday 8th July and the race on the 9th from 12h30 to 18h30.
WHAT THEY SAID
Olivier Jansonnie – Peugeot Sport Technical Director: “The goal will be to capitalize on what we built with the team during the 24 Hours of Le Mans. We showed that we can be more competitive than for the first WEC rounds, and our goal will be to do the same in Monza. The race should be less complicated than Le Mans in terms of reliability as it is shorter, but every race is unique! Everything that we implemented for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in terms of team management, will remain for the race at Monza and for the end of the season. We obviously hope that everything we were able to analyse and understand at Le Mans will help us to be even more reliable.
The Monza track is where the 9X8 made its debut, which is why it will be interesting for us to see our evolutions on this circuit. We also did some tests there; it is a fast track that suits well for endurance racing.”
Paul Di Resta – PEUGEOT #93: “After Le Mans everybody feels proud of what we manage to achieve. We had some reliability problems in the end, but I think that when we see where we were, we can be very satisfied of what we achieved as a whole team. I hope that we will be able to put to good use everything we’ve learned in Le Mans for the following races, and we the drivers, engineers, mechanics will do what we can. So far this season we had lot of ups and downs, but from Sebring on we pushed hard, we’ve made many steps forward, and as long as we can continue in that projection, I think it will be fine.
It will be interesting to see where the car is on that track, especially compared to last year. We will see where the actual improvements are, if all the metrics were covered and if we solved the weaknesses we had at the beginning. I don’t think we will go there as favourite, but we will keep progressing where we can, and I think the competition will be very quick between the Hypercar. Monza is always a crazy race, and I don’t think that this year will be any different, but we will be up for the fight.”
Nico Müller – PEUGEOT #94: “At Le Mans we had some very positive signs in terms of reliability and performance. The team was great, the mechanics did a very good job. It’s a fast track, the car has raced there before as it made its debut in WEC there last year so we have a good data base to build from already.
I love Monza. Out of all the races on the calendar, Monza is the one that feels the most like home to me, close to Switzerland. I’ve done a lot of races there during my junior single seater years and had some success as it’s where I won my first car championship quite a few years back already. It’s one of those legendary tracks that has a special atmosphere. When you get into the “Parco Di Monza”, you can feel the history. It’s always a great feeling going there, WEC races there are always exciting and to see the Hypercars on track will be very cool. I’m really looking forward to it and hopefully we can add a little bit to the history of this awesome track.”
