Why COVID-19 didn't stop Peugeot's Le Mans commitment

When Peugeot announced in November last year that it would return to the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2022, the world was a very different place than it is today. The coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing economic turmoil gave Peugeot the perfect excuse to back out but instead the French manufacturer has doubled down on its endurance commitment with a full-blown Le Mans Hypercar.

Back when Peugeot decided to pull the plug on its successful LMP1 programme at the end of 2011, its departure sent shockwaves through the endurance racing world. At the dawn of the new-for-2012 FIA World Endurance Championship, the series was left without one of its two major manufacturers in the top class, forcing Toyota to bring forward its prototype plans to take on Audi.

Peugeot had only returned to the Le Mans 24 Hours four years earlier, in 2007, trying to build on its success from the early nineties when it won back to back editions of Le Mans with the 905 as well as the 1992 world sportscar title. With the spectacular 908 HDi FAP prototype, powered by a twin-turbo V12 diesel engine, Peugeot did just that, but must have felt that it could have achieved more than just the sole Le Mans win in 2009 (below), having run Audi close on several occasions.

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Following its subsequent withdrawal in 2011, Peugeot Sport focused its efforts on various disciplines including a Dakar Rally assault and a World Rallycross Championship programme. But while it kept a close eye on the hybridised WEC LMP1 class, the enormous budgets of first Audi and Toyota, then subsequently Porsche, proved to be prohibitive of a Le Mans return.

Peugeot's stance changed when the FIA and ACO announced the Hypercar formula, based on a hybrid prototype or road car-based design that would be significantly less expensive to run that the outgoing LMP1 prototypes.

Its return to Le Mans was finally announced in November 2019, although Peugeot didn't specify if that would happen with a full-blown Hypercar or with a cheaper-still LMDh car, an LMP2 based prototype with a token hybrid system that will succeed IMSA's current DPi class in 2023 and will also be eligible for the WEC.

Few would have criticised Peugeot for going with the LMDh formula or even binning its Le Mans plans altogether due to the coronavirus pandemic, which triggered an economic downturn the effects of which are yet to be fully understood.

Instead, Peugeot announced ahead of last month's Le Mans 24 Hours that it would create a bespoke Le Mans Hypercar for its endurance return, to be developed in-house by Peugeot Sport. At a media roundtable after the announcement, Peugeot CEO Jean-Philippe Imparato explained the PSA brand's latest Le Mans venture is a strategic decision to support its long-term EV transition.

Asked by Autosport if the coronavirus crisis had threatened the programme, or nudged the brand towards LMDh, Imparato said it didn't want its long-term plans to be derailed by the pandemic.

"We didn't want to give up because of an economic crisis," Imparato explained. "It's a strategic decision because it supports completely the EV transition of the brand that is planned for the next 10 years, so we will not react to this global period based on the COVID-19 effect.

"We always said the day when we have the opportunity to study a regulation that is electrified and when the budgets globally are more reasonable, we would study every opportunity" Jean-Philippe Imparato

"I would say our position is not fragile. We are involved, we are committed and we will go through this period working out to be able to do the job."

Peugeot named the aerodynamic and aesthetic freedom of the LMH concept as one of the main reasons to pursue a Le Mans return. The announcement coincided with the launch of the 508 Peugeot Sport Engineered road car (below), which was presented a week later, on 25 September. While the road car is unrelated to the planned Hypercar prototype, both cars will be four-wheel drive hybrids and will share styling cues.

"That's a key point in the link between the technical and brand side," Imparato pointed out. "With the LMH regulations we have the opportunity to put some design cues in the car and underline the factor that the sport is at the service of the business.

"There's the design code and the fact that it's four-wheel drive. That's why we decided to jump and come back properly in the discipline of WEC."

Peugeot decided to axe its World Rallycross programme in 2018, stating it would only take part in factory motorsports if there was an electric component to it. The Hypercar regulations satisfies this criterion exactly, and have been designed to be more sustainable than the outgoing LMP1 rules they replace.

"In 2018 we decided that for Peugeot motorsport in the future would be electrified. That was the first reason we made the decision to exit from WRX," Imparato continued.

"But we always said the day when we have the opportunity to study a regulation that is electrified and when the budgets globally are more reasonable, we would study every opportunity. We would never be back with the budget of the last two or three years [in WEC]. It would not have been possible."

The development of the yet to be named prototype will be done in-house by Peugeot Sport, with PSA Motorsport boss Jean-Marc Finot explaining that it will be "a full Peugeot Sport programme".

"We already have some suppliers on the aerodynamics side for instance, on the body shell," he said. "We're also open to having some suppliers contracted for the exploitation but it will be a pure homemade Peugeot Sport programme."

For its driver line-up however, Peugeot has already started its analysis of which drivers best fit the criteria, following a similar process Toyota employed when the Japanese marque put together its LMP1 team. Finot has already stressed that French drivers are not a prerequisite.

"For the driver process, we're trying to analyse all the data of the lap times that have been performed in endurance over the last five years, in WEC but also in ELMS," the programme's technical director Olivier Jansonnie explained.

"We started building our database of drivers and their performances, which will give us shortlist telling us who has been performing better among all the drivers available.

"Once we have this, we will start working with some more selective criteria; the ability to work in a team for instance, to work with engineers, and that's where the real recruitment will start. But it's a bit early at this stage."

If there was any remaining doubt about Peugeot's renewed commitment to endurance racing, then the manner and the timing of its Hypercar confirmation have removed it. Its sudden exit in 2011 and absence from the hybrid LMP1 era of the WEC has meant Le Mans presents unfinished business for the PSA Group.

Endurance fans will have to endure one more lean year in 2021 before we will finally see another manufacturer challenge Toyota on the biggest stage. But the good news is it looks like Peugeot will be worth the wait.