Peugeot has confirmed that it will not have to construct 25 highway vehicles to homologate its incoming World Endurance Championship challenger
When first introduced, what excited us most about Peugeot’s Le Mans return was the prospect of 25 highway vehicles being constructed to homologate the corporate’s new racer. The FIA/ACO’s guidelines initially stipulated that producers might both modify an current product or construct a restricted run of manufacturing fashions to enter the Hypercar class, but it surely appears there’s some wiggle room within the laws.
After revealing particulars of the powertrain it’ll be utilizing within the World Endurance Championship automobile, Peugeot confirmed there shall be no highway automobile. It mentioned:
“We’re coming into the Le Mans Hypercar class (known as ‘’LMH’’) by way of constructing a 100% race prototype solely. We’re not attributable to construct any road-car / road-hypercar mannequin or to have any reference to a highway mannequin to get homologation of our race-car. Nonetheless, there are bridges between Peugeot Sport Engineered and the Peugeot endurance program.”
These “bridges” appear principally associated to the hybrid setup within the Peugeot 508 Sport Engineered, and it sounds as if there’s some crossover by way of the engineering groups behind every challenge.
As for the racing automobile, its main supply of propulsion is a newly designed 90-degree 2.6-litre twin-turbo V6, which by itself is sweet for 671bhp. It’s a light-weight engine, weighing simply 165kg. A single-turbo setup was thought-about, however that wasn’t suitable with Peugeot‘s centre of gravity goal. The mid-mounted powerplant feeds the rear wheels completely by way of a seven-speed sequential gearbox.
Driving the entrance axle shall be a motor-generator unit powered by a high-density battery pack, with the output restricted to 269bhp/200kW as dictated by the laws. The motive force will have the ability to mess around with each the braking forces from the motor unit and the bodily brakes. Power recuperation underneath braking may even hold the battery topped up.
Peugeot shall be coming into the World Endurance Championship in 2022, though in the meanwhile, the French producer isn’t saying if it’ll be a part of from the opening spherical or part-way by. It’ll be competing initially towards LMH entrants from Toyota and Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus (with each initiatives spawning highway vehicles), with Porsche entering the fray in the IMSA-shared LMDh class the next 12 months. Audi is also preparing an LMDh car, though a debut 12 months hasn’t but been disclosed.
