Peugeot, the French car manufacturer, missed out on the Hyperpole session for this weekend’s double-points round of the World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar class at Le Mans. The Peugeot Sport team failed to make the top eight cars that went through to the final qualifying. Jean-Marc Finot, the manufacturer’s motorsport boss, stated that the team was “improving but not by enough.” Peugeot will be the only one of the five major car makers participating in the Hypercar class not to be present in the Hyperpole session on Thursday evening.
Finot said, “We have been progressing race by race, but we are still not at the pace we were expecting. We have to do better to catch up to the front-runners.” Mikkel Jensen finished tenth in Wednesday’s qualifying session, with a time of 3m27.546s, which was 2.3s off the pace of Antonio Fuoco’s Ferrari 499P at the top of the timesheets. Loic Duval was three-tenths behind his teammate on 3m27.850s in 11th position in the one-hour session.
Finot insisted that the result represented an improvement on Peugeot’s performance in the WEC at Spa in April. “At Spa, we were two seconds off out of two minutes and here we are two seconds over three and a half minutes, so we are improving,” he said. However, Finot also pointed out that Peugeot’s competitors all made bigger gains than Peugeot between opening free practice and first qualifying. “Our competitors did a better job,” he said.
Competitors Making Bigger Gains
Peugeot’s failure to make the qualifying cut followed signs of major progress during last Sunday’s Le Mans Test Day and then the opening session of free practice for the race on Wednesday afternoon. It was six-tenths off the pace in the morning session of the Test Day and again in first practice. Peugeot has been a major beneficiary of last week’s Balance of Performance change in Hypercar. It was the only one of the five major players in class not to be hit with an increase in minimum weight.
Jensen expressed happiness with his lap to make the top 10 because it was set on tyres that were past their best. “I felt I got the most out of the car, but we didn’t put the lap together, get the chance to show our pace,” he explained. “On my best lap, I was impeded by a GT car at the Ford Chicane and a red flag came on my second-best lap when I was one second from the finish line. The first one would have been a high 3m26s, but whether we could have got into Hyperpole, I am not sure.”
Peugeot Need to do Better to Catch Up to Front-Runners
Peugeot Sport team’s failure to make the qualifying cut was disappointing, given the progress shown on the Le Mans Test Day and in the opening session of free practice. Finot’s insistence that the team is improving is encouraging, but he acknowledged that Peugeot needs to do better to catch up to the front-runners. With the Hyperpole session underway, the pressure will be on for Peugeot to step up its performance and prove that it can compete with the rest of the field.
Leave a Reply