The 24 Hours of Le Mans will welcome new cars called “Hypercars” by 2023 with the aim of bringing back the major manufacturers, Peugeot having already answered the call on Friday.
The 88th edition of the famous world endurance event takes place this weekend but only five cars are lining up in the premier LMP1 category, including two Toyota starting ultra-favorites.
The Japanese manufacturer is aiming for a third consecutive victory, which it should be able to do without strong opposition to it.
There will be little more than the two cars of the Swiss team Rebellion to resist him, unless the rain comes to redistribute the cards.
Next year, Rebellion will no longer be here and Toyota will no longer be running its TS050 hybrids.
The French manufacturer Renault has announced its return to Le Mans and to the WEC endurance world championship with its sports brand Alpine, but this car will in fact only be a “rebadged” Rebellion.
To revive the interest of the endurance event, the first edition of which took place in 1923, its organizer, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO), is counting on the Hypercars to revive interest and bring back the public.
He is completely absent this weekend due to the new coronavirus, which gives an unusual ghostly aspect to the Sarthois circuit, usually the scene of a giant party during the event.
If Toyota has already confirmed its interest in Hypercars, Peugeot has just joined it.
The French manufacturer announced Friday that it would join this new category, whose acronym is "LMH", in 2022 with a participation in Le Mans from that year or in 2023. "The choice of the LMH category was dictated by several criteria, including that of a certain aerodynamic freedom.
This makes it possible to integrate, with the support of Peugeot's design, the aesthetic codes of the brand, ”the French manufacturer said in a press release.
Hydrogen on the horizon
"The LMH in hybrid is a four-wheel drive system with the possibility, thanks to electrification, of converting two-wheel-drive vehicles into four-wheel drive and that is the brand's marketing message", explained Olivier Jansonnie, WEC program director at PSA Motorsport during an interview with AFP on the sidelines of the 88th edition of the event.
Peugeot announced last November its return to the endurance world championship in 2022, already encouraged by the first information on this new category and the reductions in development costs that it implies.
The goal was then to participate in Le Mans in 2023 as part of the 2022-2023 season of the WEC but the timetable has not yet been definitively fixed, program officials said.
"We will leave only when we are sure of our shot and this is something that we will not know until early 2022," said Mr. Finot, director of PSA Motorsport at
AFP
.
Peugeot, which has three Le Mans successes in 1992, 1993 and 2009, left endurance racing in 2012 for budgetary reasons.
The LMH category will be accompanied by another, the LMDh, which will be able to run in Europe and the United States, in other famous events such as the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 1000 Miles of Sebring.
Beyond the Hypercars, another challenge looms, that of zero-emission racing cars in the context of the H24 project and hydrogen propulsion, the advantage of which is to reject only water.
A prototype, which has already carried out track tests, is due to participate in Le Mans in 2024 and several car manufacturers have expressed their interest in this formula.
“The project does not only concern the car but the hydrogen refueling infrastructure.
We also want green hydrogen and we must also work on this sector, "Pierre Fillon, president of the ACO, underlined Friday during an interview with
AFP
.
He stressed that LMHs and hydrogen cars will drive together and compete for victory in the world's biggest motor endurance event starting in 2025.
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