24 HOUR RACE TECHNOLOGY VOLUME 2 2008
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INSIGHT : PEUGEOT 908
24 HOUR race technology
A SPECIAL REPORT
HERE COME THE SUPER COUPES NEW SHAPE PROTOTYPE TECHNOLOGY
CORVETTE AT LE MANS INSIDE THE 7.0 LITRE WARRIOR
ASTON MARTIN-LOLA RETURN OF AN ICONIC COUPE
the pole was taken in 198.513 seconds whereas in 2007 it stood at 206.344. In fact it was clear that the improvement could have been more than 7.831 seconds (3.8%) had Peugeot pushed harder. With Audi reluctant to play the qualifying times game, there was no point. The quickest Audi in 2008 qualifying, which was the eventual
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winner, lapped in 203.847 seconds. But on race day the quickest Audi, the car that finished fourth, set a lap time of 203.939 seconds – close to qualifying pace. Of the Peugeots, only one dipped under 200 seconds, the car that finished fifth clocking 199.394 seconds as the fastest lap of the race. In the race Peugeot had more speed than Audi but not significantly more: not enough to dominate, particularly after the rain came.
t was the sensation of qualifying but failed to parlay pure speed into race winning pace.
In qualifying for the 76th Le Mans 24 Hour race the Peugeot 908 trio easily dipped under the 200 second mark. This year,
For its part Audi was able to parlay ten years of successful
development of Le Mans Prototypes into fuel efficiency that in the final analysis was its winning edge. Peugeot came in for the 2007 season, having been absent from Prototype racing since 1993, with a car that was as quick, if not quicker than the Audi. For 2008 it made that car quicker still and combined that with the reliability to race Audi throughout a twice around the clock sprint. The next step will be to marry this with an Audi-level of efficiency…
908 DESIGN Michel Barge is Director of Peugeot Sport while, as the Head of the 908 Project Paolo Catone reports to Bruno Famin, the organisation’s Technical Director. Electronics for the 908 is headed by Jean-Marc Schmit; engine design and development by Claude Guillois. Peugeot Sport employs 180 in total at its Velizy, Paris factory and half of them work directly on the 908 – the rest are split between the 207 Super
2000 customer rally car, the Peugeot Spyder one-make series and some other competition projects. Compared to a typical Formula One team the head count at
Velizy is low, which reflects the fact that a lot of manufacturing work is outsourced. Velizy is the base for 908 design, model making and prototyping, engine and chassis assembly and race engineering. It has dyno facilities but both aero and rig testing are carried out elsewhere. The Aero department at Velizy employs eight and it has eight CAD stations, two of which run CFD using Exa software. Full car CFD simulations are run on a super-computer elsewhere but Peugeot Sport has the processing power to run sophisticated component studies. The primary 908 aero testing tool is a 50% scale model, made and maintained at Velizy, where the Model Shop is five strong. The model is run at Fondmetal Technologies’ moving ground plane wind tunnel facilities in Italy. Peugeot Sport started out running at the older Fond
Tech tunnel in Casumaro (much used by Audi for LM P1 work) but during 2007 also used the newer Aerolab facility in Sant’ Agata Bolognese, benefiting from what Catone describes as its greater precision. The design of the 908 chassis including the transmission is the responsibility of the primary Design Office at Velizy. In total there are a dozen Catia stations and anything up to 24 employees in this office, according to project requirements. Employees switch between 908 and 207 rally car design duties and typically the head count across both projects numbers 12-18. The design office creates CAM files that control machines inside and outside of the factory. Most machining is outsourced but there is a small ‘shop in the factory for prototype parts production. Likewise advanced composite component manufacturing is outsourced to a network of suppliers. The majority of composite work is done by ATR in Italy, the company that makes the 908’s monocoque.
GENERAL LAYOUT The 908 carries a notably-heavy 5.5 litre V12 turbo diesel engine (twice the weight of a Formula One V8) and was originally designed to the minimum ACO LM P1 category weight limit of 925 kg – for 2008 that has gone down to 900 kg. Scrutineering weights at Le Mans are no longer made public but Peugeot insists that the 908 was not significantly over the minimum in its 2008 24 hour race trim. The car is built on an undisclosed wheelbase length, which is less than 3000 mm and it has less than the maximum permitted 1000 mm front overhang albeit all of the maximum permitted 750 mm rear overhang. It is dominated by the weight (circa 25% of its total) and bulk of its V12 engine and by the considerable cooler area that the more powerful engine requires – more than 25% greater than that of an LM
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Ian Bamsey considers the development of the Peugeot 908, the car that won pole at Le Mans in 2007 and in 2008
Speed racer The Peugeot 908 at Le Mans 2008 Peugeot Sport Technical Director Bruno Famin (right)
24HRTv2 contents • Dossier:
Peugeot 908 v12 HDi FAP Ian Bamsey considers the development of the Peugeot 908, the car that won pole at Le Mans in 2007 and in 2008
• insigHt:
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• ProFiLe: LoLA-Aston MArtin v12 Anne Proffit investigates the fastest petrol powered car at Le Mans this year
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• griD Le Mans Techno Topics
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• Ps: sAuBer-MerceDes A Le Mans legend
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RACE ENGINE TECHNOLOGY SPECIAL REPORT
24 HOUR RACE TECHNOLOGY 2008
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