Team Peugeot TotalEnergies banished the memory of a disappointing 24 Hours of Le Mans on home soil three weeks earlier to tally its first double points finish of the 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship campaign at Interlagos ten days ago.
After qualifying towards the tail-end of the Hypercar field and winding up just 11th and 16th in the race with its brace of 9X8 Hypercars at La Sarthe, Peugeot headed to Interlagos in search of a significantly better performance – and duly delivered.
Malthe Jakobsen and Paul Di Resta scorched through the first part of qualifying in second and third places respectively, prior to securing fourth (#94) and sixth (#93) on the grid in the top ten Hyperpole shootout, separated by barely a tenth-and-a-half-of-a-second. Notably, the session marked the first time impressive FIA WEC rookie Jakobsen had qualified the car.
In the following day’s 6 Hours of São Paulo, team-mates Loïc Duval and Mikkel Jensen maintained that positive momentum by climbing to third and fourth early on, but the pair’s second stint had to be cut short by about ten laps after suffering high tyre degradation around the recently-resurfaced Autódromo José Carlos Pace.
That dropped the two French prototypes down the order slightly, with their cause not aided by the unfortunate timing of Full Course Yellow interruptions. Qualifying stars Jakobsen and Di Resta took to the track for the middle part of the race, before Duval and Jensen returned to the cockpit for the final push, with regular stablemates Stoffel Vandoorne and Jean-Éric Vergne unavailable due to clashing commitments.
After losing out to the #20 BMW in the closing stages, the two 9X8s took the chequered flag less than 18 seconds apart in sixth (#94) and seventh (#93) – the team’s best joint result of the season to-date. While conscious that there are still improvements to be made, it nonetheless offered drivers and management plenty of cause for encouragement looking to the remainder of the campaign.
“We had a really good first stint, with everything under control,” reflected Duval, “but I struggled in my second stint due to heavy rear tyre degradation as the temperature rose. That cost us a bit of time and forced us to change our strategy by bringing our pit-stop forward. As a result, our final stint was a bit longer than that of our competitors and the BMW just had a bit more pace than we did. Sixth place is not too bad – but we’re hungry for more!”
“It was tough with only two drivers and made for a busy race, with the starting drivers also having to finish,” added Jensen, “but on the flipside, the advantage is that you learn a lot from the first double-stint and can adjust accordingly at the end.
“Tyre management was crucial; it was all about trying to be smart and knowing when to push, and I did a better job of that during my last stint. Overall, it was a good weekend for the team, with strong performances in qualifying and a solid final result. Now, we need to focus on tyre degradation.”
Those sentiments were echoed by Peugeot Sport Technical Director, Olivier Jansonnie, who hopes the squad’s form in São Paulo will prove to be the catalyst for a stronger final three outings in 2025.
“Our race pace was as expected, but we may have underestimated the speed of our three direct competitors, who were very fast,” the Frenchman mused. “We could have finished fifth and sixth; it’s a shame, but we lost time under the Full Course Yellows so we need to analyse why. Still, the gaps are getting tighter, and there will be more opportunities to perform well before the end of the season.”
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