As Peugeot TotalEnergies embarks on its third full season with the 9X8 in the FIA WEC’s Hypercar class, it hopes that the latest update package for the car will help it string together strong results and achieve a first win.

Pressure is mounting on the French manufacturer’s program, which debuted at the tail end of the 2022 season. To this point, it has netted just two podium finishes as the number of competitors around it has grown and improved.

To find form, the original concept for the 9X8 – which generated downforce through the car’s floor – was scrapped in favor of a new, more traditional aero package that debuted last season at Imola ,and also brought with it a change in tire size. Before that, a new hydraulic gear shift activator was introduced, too. But these developments were not quite enough to propel the team to the front of the field.

The end of the 2024 season showed real promise, though, when the No. 93 car scored a third-place finish in Bahrain. Add to that a new suspension update for both the front and rear of the car which counts as another Evo “Joker” – which was signed off over the winter in time for the 2025 season opener – and there’s reason for optimism for the campaign ahead.

“It’s something we have been testing for a while (since November),” Olivier Jansonnie, Peugeot Sport’s technical director, said when asked by reporters about the Joker played for the 2025 season. “It’s a refinement of the suspension to get the aero to work better on the car, stabilize the platform and get a better aero effect. We cannot change the aero but we can actually improve it. We are trying to use the aero map on the car better by stabilizing the car. That’s the main target. It does many different things, but that’s the biggest thing.

“It’s difficult to assess your weaknesses when you’re on your own testing, so it took a few races last year to assess what weaknesses we had,” he continued. “We found some interesting stuff in comparison to what our competitors are able to do and we are not able to do, at least yet. It took us some races. Le Mans was clear, then Austin (COTA) and Sao Paulo. By Austin, we knew what we were looking for.

“And we still haven’t finished (evaluating and validating the change to the suspension). You homologate something, but there are combinations; you have options on setup. Basically, doing something on the front suspension will allow you to change something on the diff as well, for example.”

Jansonnie went on to explain that the suspension update is unlikely to make a difference in Qatar this week due to the characteristics of the circuit, which is flat and features a smooth surface. However, once the WEC travels to tracks such as Imola and COTA later in the season, the team should begin to really see the benefits of its development.

“We believe there is a benefit everywhere, but there are tracks where we were particularly poor performance-wise,” he said. “Austin, for example, wasn’t a good race for us, and for this type of track, it should be better for us with the update. We’ve also worked on software and refinements. System-wise, the car is quite different to last year here.”

It is not entirely clear how many Jokers Peugeot has used to this point, Jansonnie wouldn’t disclose that information publicly.

“We don’t want to discuss what we are doing strategy-wise,” he said. “It’s a bit of a game now, of who is doing what and adding what. We can explain what we changed, but not how we’ve dealt with it with the FIA.”

He did outline Peugeot’s strategy for testing over the winter, revealing that the team has had an eye on Le Mans since December.

“The amount of testing is reduced by regulation, so we are now down to eight 24-hour days of testing from January to December,” he said. “We had days left in December, so part of our Le Mans validation has already been done. The idea was to do this early so we could focus on performance development for the season and test more on WEC tracks, such as Imola and Spa.”

A huge season beckons and everyone within the team knows it, particularly in the wake of Carlos Tavares’ departure from Stellantis as CEO and Alain Favey’s appointment as chief executive of Peugeot after Linda Jackson’s retirement. Jansonnie stressed though that the program is still receiving the full level of support from above.

“So far there’s no change, the brand is still fully committed to this project and there’s huge support definitely,” he said. “We are improving but it’s getting more and more difficult. There’s pressure, but there was pressure last year.”