Peugeot was the protagonist, indeed a great protagonist, a bit surprisingly, in the first part of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Loic Duval’s 9X8 was also in the lead until the Centenary race really got underway, after an innumerable series of slow zones and safety cars that didn’t allow the race to get into full swing, to show the actual pace of the individual cars.
Then problems emerged and the riders’ exits that undermined the potential, despite the support as a true fan of Carlos Tavares, the undisputed head of the Stellantis Group, has never failed.
Mikkel Jensen had a bad adventure at lunchtime while on the Hunaudieres straight he was slipstreaming a Glickenhaus: the Peugeot 9X8 behind the American Hypercar was sucking up all the slipstream, when suddenly the front bonnet literally exploded it ripped off its supports and flew off to the side in a very dangerous way considering the speed it was traveling on.
What may have happened? It is very probable that a fixing on the bonnet gave way, or it was badly closed, so when the Peugeot ended up in the dirty air of the Glickenhaus, due to the effect of the turbulence, the bodywork support gave way causing the detachment of the aerodynamic detail.
The car lacking the necessary load began to pump at the front, showing exaggerated porpoising: the Danish driver was very good at maintaining control of the Peugeot and preventing a high-speed mishap from turning into a nasty accident.
The memory of the double backflip by Mark Webber and Peter Dumbreck who literally flew over the track fences with the Mercedes-Benz CLR during the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans has resurfaced in the memory of Endurance enthusiasts: the Australian took off both in qualifying during the warm up, while the Scot had a bad experience in the race. The House of the Star decided to stop the cars and withdraw.
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