Peugeot 607 Sport
Catherine Nicolo
Peugeot Sport was formed in 1981 under the name of Peugeot Talbot Sport, after Jean Todt, a World Rally Championship co-driver for Talbot driver Guy Frquelin, was asked by Peugeot to create a sporting department for the PSA Peugeot Citron group.
The rally team, established at 8, rue Paul Bert, Boulogne-Billancourt (the sportscar racing team will leave those premises in July 1990 to go to Vlizy-Villacoublay) near Paris, France[1] debuted its Group B Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 in the 1984 season, and took its first victory in Rally Finland in the hands of Ari Vatanen.
In the 1985 season, Peugeot drivers Vatanen and Timo Salonen won seven out of the 12 rounds to give Peugeot its first manufacturers' title and Salonen the drivers' title. Vatanen had been seriously injured in an accident in Argentina in 1985, so was replaced by Juha Kankkunen for the 1986 season, who promptly delivered the team the second consecutive title. The FIA banned Group B cars for the 1987 season after the fatal accident of Henri Toivonen. This lead Peugeot to switch to rally raid, using the 205 to win the Dakar Rally for two consecutive years in 1987 to 1988, and then used the 405 to win in 1989 and 1990. Peugeot Talbot Sport also participated three times at the Pikes Peak Hillclimb Race in 1987, 1988 and 1989, winning the last two years, as well as in 2013 with the 208 T16.
In endurance racing Peugeot Talbot Sport established their sportscar racing team at Vlizy-Villacoublay near Paris, France [2] and in November 1988 launched the Peugeot 905 project, to develop a sportscar to begin competing in the World Sportscar Championship in the 1991 season.
Peugeot switched to Formula One for 1994, using a similar 3.5L V10 engine as found in the 905. This was developed to be used by McLaren in 1994. However, poor reliability led to the relationship ending at the end of 1994 after 8 podiums, zero victories and 17 DNFs. It was then revealed that the main reason for the relationship collapsing was because Peugeot did not provide the factory support promised when McLaren signed with them over the alternative Chrysler-Lamborghini offering. McLaren elected to switch to works Ilmor-built Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines with guaranteed factory support from Mercedes directly and in effect becoming their new works team from the 1995 season onwards. This led to Peugeot supplying Jordan Grand Prix in 1995, 1996, and 1997 with 5 podiums as best results, Peugeot's best chance of victory during this time came at the 1995 Canadian Grand Prix when both Eddie Irvine and Rubens Barrichello finished 2nd and 3rd on the podium respectively, political pressures from France however meant Peugeot switched their allegiance to the Prost Grand Prix team for the 1998, 1999 and 2000 seasons for an attempt at becoming an all French Powerhouse and thus Prost earned Peugeot's direct factory support. It was established just a few days before the partnership was made official that Peugeot had changed the terms of their agreement with Prost meaning they had to pay Peugeot for the engines over a period of 3 Seasons rather than receiving them for free over a period of 5 Seasons, this left Prost with little to no choice but to agree to the new terms as it would have left them with little to no time to either find a new engine supplier or returning to Mugen-Honda which was not possible as they had already reached an agreement to supply Jordan, however also not doing so would have had major ramifications with potential sponsors pulling out of sponsoring them,[3] the relationship was a disaster, in 1998 a measly 1 point was scored over the entire season in Belgium courtesy of Jarno Trulli which was a stark contrast to the 33 points Peugeot had scored with Jordan in 1997, 1999 was only a slight improvement with 9 points scored though a final podium was achieved for Peugeot at the 1999 European Grand Prix courtesy of Trulli finishing 2nd, However, after a pointless 2000 season where poor reliability matched with Prost's inability to deliver a competitive chassis combined with having scored no wins since their debut as an engine supplier in 1994, led to the French marque pulling the plug out of F1 after 115 Grand Prix entries with just 14 podiums scored.
The Peugeot engines were bought by an Asian consortium led by former F1 designer Enrique Scalabroni called Asiatech and used for two further years (in 2001 for Arrows and in 2002 for Minardi. The former named Peugeot engine's best result during this time was at the 2002 Australian Grand Prix when Mark Webber managed an incredible 5th place on his debut, this unexpected success meant the team were allowed an exception to celebrate on the Podium Step. The Asiatech engines were both reliable, powerful and were supplied at zero cost, but its poor driveability led to both teams replacing them in favor of more costly but more capable Cosworth units.
Peugeot entered the British Touring Car Championship in 1992, preparing 405's for former champion Robb Gravett. The team was run in-house from the company's UK factory in Coventry. The 405 never won a race despite promising results in its four seasons of competition, before being replaced in 1996 by the 406. Unfortunately Peugeot UK did not share any technical data with its European contemporaries, and the BTCC programme suffered. Peugeot handed the works deal to Motor Sport Developments for 1997 and 98, but wins still eluded the team. With spiralling costs in the series, Peugeot withdrew from the BTCC at the end of 1998.
Peugeot has been racing successfully in the Stock Car Brasil series since 2007 and won the 2008, 2009, and 2011 championships. Peugeot Argentina has participated in TC 2000/Super TC 2000, where it has also won championships.
In 1999, Peugeot Sport returned to the World Rally Championship with the Peugeot 206 WRC, under the guidance of director Corrado Provera. The car debuted at the Tour de Corse, with Franois Delecour driving one car and Gilles Panizzi and Marcus Grnholm sharing the second car over the remaining events. Grnholm finished fourth on the car's third event, Rally Finland, before Panizzi finished second on Rallye Sanremo.
The driver lineup remained the same for 2003, with Marlboro joining as title sponsor. Grnholm won in Sweden yet again, and took another two wins in New Zealand and Argentina. Panizzi picked up another win in Spain. Poised to rejoin Subaru in 2004, Burns was ruled out of action ahead of the final round of the season in Great Britain, having suffered a blackout while driving to the event. He was replaced for the event and the 2004 season by Belgian Freddy Loix. Burns finished the season fourth in the standings, ahead of Grnholm in sixth. Peugeot lost its manufacturers crown to Citron.
Peugeot Sport created the Peugeot 207 S2000, a rally car built to Super 2000 regulations. Peugeot Sport enter the cars, run by Kronos Racing, in the Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC). Peugeot drivers Enrique Garca-Ojeda, Nicolas Vouilloz and Kris Meeke won the IRC drivers' title in 2007, 2008 and 2009 respectively. It was replaced by 208 T16, which competes under R5 Regulations.
Under the guidance of new director Michel Barge, Peugeot Sport returned to sportscar racing for 2007, taking on the dominant Audi with the Peugeot 908 HDi FAP. The car made its debut at the 2007 1000km of Monza, the opening round of the 2007 Le Mans Series season. The pairing of Marc Gen and Nicolas Minassian took the car to victory. At the 2007 24 Hours of Le Mans, Stphane Sarrazin took pole position for the team ahead of the Audis. In the race, the #8 car of Sarrazin, Pedro Lamy and Sbastien Bourdais finished second behind the #1 Audi. After Le Mans, Sarrazin and Lamy took the Le Mans Series title for Peugeot.
At the 2008 24 Hours of Le Mans, Peugeot and Sarrazin once again took pole position, locking out the first three places on the grid. In the race, the trio of cars finished in second, third and fifth. In the Le Mans Series, Peugeot lost out to Audi again, Minassian and Gen finishing in second place.
At the beginning of 2009, PSA Peugeot Citron made Citron Sport director Olivier Quesnel the director of Peugeot Sport too. At the 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans, Sarrazin set his third consecutive pole position for the team. In the race, the team delivered its first Le Mans victory since 1993, with the trio of David Brabham, Gen and Alexander Wurz winning ahead of the car driven by Franck Montagny, Bourdais and Sarrazin. The team's third car finished the race in sixth position. The team only contested one round of the Le Mans Series season, at Spa as preparation for Le Mans itself.
At the 2011 12 Hours of Sebring, the older Peugeot 908 HDi FAP owned by Oreca Racing had a surprise win over the factory 908s and Audi R15++s. At the 2011 24 Hours of Le Mans, Peugeot saw itself in a position to win after two of the Audi R18s crashed; only a strong effort from the sole surviving Audi kept Peugeot from winning the race. The winning Audi was only 13 seconds ahead of the second-place Peugeot 908.
On 18 January 2012, Peugeot Sport announced its withdrawal from sportscar racing, citing lowering car sales and the economic downturn as reasons. A return, however, was not ruled out if funds can be procured for the future, but not likely before 2015.[5]
On 13 November 2019 Peugeot announced that they would take part in the 2022 FIA World Endurance Championship in the newly created Hypercar class, which made the brand's return to the sports car racing landscape after an 11-year absence.[6] During the 2020 24 Hours of Le Mans, the CEO of PSA Group Carlos Tavares unveiled renders of the new Peugeot Hypercar,[7] and in December 2020, Peugeot and Total unveiled the powertrain called the Peugeot Hybrid4 (this platform was born in 2012 with the unveil of the 2012 hybrid-spec of the Peugeot 908),[8] with aerodynamics completed in partnership with Ligier.[9] On 8 February 2021, Peugeot revealed a driver line-up consisting of Loic Duval, Jean-ric Vergne, Mikkel Jensen, Gustavo Menezes, Paul Di Resta, and Kevin Magnussen, as well as James Rossiter as simulator/reserve driver for the WEC 2022 season.[10] Rossiter was later promoted to full-time driver after Magnussen was announced to be driving for the Haas F1 Team in 2022, thus leaving him unavailable for WEC.[11] Rossiter was later replaced by Nico Mller for the final round of 2022 and the 2023 season.[12][13] Peugeot earned their first podium finish in the WEC at the 2023 6 Hours of Monza.[14]
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