Peugeot took their best result of the season in São Paulo
- Ghazlan Atqiya Firmansyah
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Written by Ghazlan Atqiya Firmansyah
Following their disappointing Le Mans race, Peugeot achieved its best result of the season in São Paulo, with both cars scoring points.
Peugeot's strong São Paulo qualifying
The French team utilised the free practice session to determine the optimal settings for the tight and technical Interlagos Circuit. Briton Paul di Resta (No.93) and Danish driver Malthe Jakobsen (No.94) piloted the 9X8 Hypercar into Hyperpole as the team elected to enter two drivers for each of the cars due to the absence of Jean-Éric Vergne and Stoffel Vandoorne.
At 21 years old, Jakobsen took his No.94 car into fourth in his first qualifying session, clocking 0.378 seconds off the No.12 Cadillac on pole. Di Resta also had a strong qualifying himself in sixth. This put both cars in a good position to finish strongly for the six-hour race.
Di Resta felt happy with his performance and even went as far as to say he could have gotten more had it not been for traffic and understeer.
"My first session went really well. I had some traffic. Without it, maybe I could’ve gone for P1. That gave me confidence for the second session, although I had a bit of understeer. P4 and P6 are a great result for the team and should put us in the fight during the early part of the race."
Jakobsen was thankful for his team's support and having a competitive car: "It was my first qualifying session in WEC, and I want to thank the team for trusting me and giving me a comfortable and competitive car. I really enjoyed both sessions. It was thrilling to push this Hypercar to the limit with low fuel to go for the best lap possible."
As it happened on Sunday
The start of the 6 Hours of São Paulo was thrilling, and cars immediately fought for position. No.94's Loïc Duval fiercely defended his fourth place from the rival behind. No.93's Mikkel Jensen gained one position from the opening lap from the No.20 BMW M Team WRT. Both cars were running in third and fourth before their first pit stop after 40 laps.
The second stint for the duo was more challenging as they had to deal with high tyre degradation on the resurfaced track. As a result, their original stint was cut down to 10 laps. Nonetheless, both cars maintained their starting positions during the second pit stop.
Jakobsen and Di Resta took over the No.94 and No.93 cars on new medium compounds and ran solidly during their traffic-infested double stint. Duval and Jensen returned to the cockpit to take the cars to the finish line as they came home in sixth and seventh, respectively.
Olivier Jansonnie, Peugeot Sport's Technical Director, said the cars performed as expected but claimed they may have underestimated their competitors: "Our race pace was as expected, but we may have underestimated the speed of our three direct competitors, who were very fast."
"We could have finished P5 and P6, it’s a shame, but we lost time under FCY. We’ll need to analyse why. The gaps are getting tighter, and there will be more opportunities to perform well before the end of the season."
Jensen took the positives of the two-driver lineup and felt it was a good weekend for the team: "The advantage of a two-driver lineup is that you learn a lot from the first double stint and can adjust accordingly at the end of the race."
"In this race, tyre degradation management was crucial, and I did a better job of that during my final stint. Overall, it was a good weekend for the team, with strong performances in qualifying and a solid final result. Now we need to focus on tyre degradation", Jensen concluded.
"A pretty calm start for me and a good first stint", Duval said. "I struggled more in my second
stint due to heavy rear tyre degradation, which forced us to bring our pit stop forward. As a result, our final stint was a bit longer than that of our competitors, and on top of that, we were unlucky with the FCY, which cost us around 15 seconds."
Peugeot scored 14 points in São Paulo as they remain in seventh in the Hypercar Manufacturers' Championship with a total of 28 points. Alpine is ahead of them by 30 points.
