Peugeot team principal Emmanuel Esnault has hit out at the FIA World Endurance Championship after both 9X8s were eliminated in qualifying for the Le Mans 24 Hours.
Esnault was livid after Peugeot went from qualifying fourth at the Imola 6 Hours, 0.073s down on pole position, and taking pole at the Spa-Francorchamps 6 Hours, to 16th and 18th on the Le Mans grid – crucially as only the top 15 cars (out of 18) were qualified for Thursday’s Hyperpole.
Stoffel Vandoorne’s #93 entry was the quickest of the two 9X8s, with a 1.843s deficit to the fastest time and a 0.355s gap to 15th position. The #94 driven by Malthe Jakobsen, which achieved the aforementioned feats in Italy and Belgium, ended up 2.525s adrift.
Speaking to the media minutes after the debacle, Esnault wasn’t quite loquacious, but whatever few words he said – and his body language, with an ice-cold facial expression and frequent shrugs – carried much weight.
“To move from competitor for the pole in Imola and Spa and for the home race to be two tenths per kilometre away from the pace is extremely frustrating, but that’s racing,” Esnault commented. “So you don’t give up, you’ve got a race to prepare. Qualifying is not everything of course but it’s… of course, you can imagine.”
#93 Peugeot Totalenergies Peugeot 9X8: Paul Di Resta, Stoffel Vandoorne, Nick Cassidy
Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt
Asked how to explain Peugeot going from pole contender a few weeks ago to this situation, Esnault tersely replied: “We are in World Endurance Championship.”
The underlying reason for his quirkily unspecific answer lies in the Balance of Performance, which has aimed at creating a level-playing field among the vastly diverse Hypercar machinery and has been made secret for 2026. Competitors are banned from discussing the BoP publicly, though there always are workarounds – like the above.
“It’s the same package, the same people, the same car as we had over the past two races,” Esnault doubled down.
This situation is nothing new for Peugeot. Twelve months ago, Paul Di Resta had summed things up as “It’s got your hands tied, and you’re handcuffed”, while Jean-Eric Vergne emotionally lamented: “I put my heart and soul into fighting this, I tried everything at my level – talking with decision-makers, understanding their point of view…” The French driver has taken 2026 off to focus on his Formula E duties.
Vergne doesn’t race for Peugeot anymore, though he remains a test driver
Photo by: Eric Le Galliot
Asked by Motorsport if it was fair to say this was a similar story, Esnault replied: “It looks like it, similar from last year in terms of pace. But we cannot be happy with that, of course, as you can imagine when you are a racer and when you are representing a brand like Peugeot with such a rich heritage. I mean, it’s not the way we want to race.”
Esnault is now hoping Peugeot will be “proportionally” faster in the race, but is steering clear of any unrealistic expectations.
“We need Alfred Hitchcock to jump in,” he joked. “It’s a mix of parameters, of course. We will have to bet on a few things and to play with unforeseen circumstances.
“The key point now, starting from the back, is to survive – to survive and to be opportunistic to, as usual, try to execute the best possible way and to give a clean sheet in terms of operations, pitstops, strategy, etc. We will have to be opportunistic anyway. We’ve got nothing to lose when you start from the back. Let’s be clever, let’s prepare the car properly and put the drivers in the right mindset. That’s what we have to do now.”
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