Less than a year on from the presentation that unveiled the car's concept, and just five months after its maiden track test, wraps were taken off the 9X8 Le Mans Hypercar at Algarve International Circuit in southern Portugal.

Peugeot’s on-track testing programme kicked off last December and has since visited Portimão, Circuit Paul Ricard, MotorLand Aragón, Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya and Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours, with the 9X8 clocking up more than 10,000 kilometres over the course of 25 test days.

Paul Di Resta, Loïc Duval, Mikkel Jensen, Gustavo Menezes, James Rossiter and Jean-Éric Vergne were nominated to share the driving duties and form the crews of the two-car entry in July’s 6 Hours of Monza, with the composition of each trio due to be confirmed at a later stage, following the conclusion of the car’s testing programme.

The two PEUGEOT 9X8s are then set to contest the remainder of the WEC season, including the 6 Hours of Fuji in September and November’s season finale, the 8 Hours of Bahrain.

The 2023 season will see Team Peugeot TotalEnergies contest the full WEC campaign, including the centenary edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Linda Jackson, CEO of PEUGEOT, said: “Peugeot's participation in the FIA World Endurance Championship is further evidence of the brand’s ingenuity and longstanding passion for motorsport. It will also play a role in the essential transfer of technology from the race track to our road-going vehicles, particularly in the field of electrification. To illustrate how serious we are about energy transition, Peugeot has committed to electrifying its entire model range by 2024. What’s more, if we are to achieve our target of being electric-only in Europe by 2030, we know we need to excel in this domain, and motor racing is crucial to this objective. Even before the PEUGEOT 9X8 makes its race debut, the programme’s engineers have already carried over its hybrid system to one of our road cars – the Peugeot 508 Peugeot Sport Engineered. And other examples are similarly in the pipeline.”

Jean-Marc Finot, Director of Stellantis Motorsport, said: “At Portimão today, Team Peugeot TotalEnergies presents its Peugeot 9X8 Le Mans Hypercar prototype. This bold, sophisticated car wholeheartedly embraces the brand’s DNA and is the product of tireless teamwork involving our Sport and Design departments, boosted by the unstinting support of our key partners whose expertise in their respective fields has been essential. Success on the race track can only be achieved via a fusion of skills.”

Olivier Jansonnie, Technical Director of Peugeot Sport, said: “In presenting our new race car today, we are keeping the promise that we made last summer. The Peugeot 9X8 is effectively the physical embodiment of the concept we revealed back in July 2021. The challenge we have faced in recent months has been two-fold and has involved forming a team to then produce a car and prepare it for its competitive debut. With only weeks to go until its maiden competitive outing at Monza, the Peugeot 9X8 has been clocking up the kilometres in testing at a variety of circuits. At the end of the day, however, there is no substitute for actual racing and we can’t wait to discover the potential of our hybrid-electric Hypercar which was developed in-house to demonstrate our skills in the realm of hybridisation and other areas.”