Peugeot has said that the groundbreaking design on its 9X8 Le Mans Hypercar is the result of more design freedom allowed by the Le Mans Hypercar technical regulations.
The French manufacturer unveiled its Hypercar on Tuesday, which garnered surprised reactions due to its radical design, notably not featuring a rear wing.
Peugeot said that it was allowed to take a more liberal approach to designing its new top-level prototype thanks to the technical regulations put in place for the new top class, which it says ‘permits radical new thinking that favours the emergence of innovative cars’, which it says allowed its engineers to develop ‘new creative processes’ for its car.
Olvier Jansonnie, the Technical Director for Peugeot’s WEC programme, explained how important the regulations had been to designing the 9X8.
“The new Le Mans Hypercar regulations were drawn up to level out the importance of conventional performance-boosting systems,” Jansonnie said.“Designing the 9X8 has been a passionate experience because we had the freedom to invent, innovate and explore off-the-wall ways to optimise the car’s performance, and more especially its aerodynamics.
The key to Peugeot’s lack of rear wing to the 9X8 lies within Article 3.4.1 of the Le Mans Hypercar technical regulations, which states that ‘only one bodywork adjustable aerodynamic device may be used’, but which does not state that each car is required to feature a rear wing.
Jansonnie went on to explain that it was this, along with research showing the feasability of a wingless car, that made Peugeot decide to adopt the unusual approach.
“The regulations stipulate that only one adjustable aerodynamic device is permitted, without specifying the rear wing. Our calculation work and simulations revealed that high performance was effectively possible without one.”
As a result, the Peugeot 9X8 is a significant departure from prototype design seen in the past few decades, up to and including the current-gen Hypercar from rival teams Toyota and Glickenhaus, which both feature traditional rear wings.
