Peugeot 9X8 reserve driver, Stoffel Vandoorne's third suit

Stoffel Vandoorne's 2023 season promises to be a busy one. With three different disciplines to get to know and three different brands to represent, the 30-year-old Belgian will not be idle. His main programme is of course Formula E, a championship in which he is the title holder and in which he is defending the interests of DS-Penske this year. Sixteenth overall after four races out of sixteen, he is currently 75 points behind the leader (Porsche).

But in parallel to his commitments in the electric single-seater championship, the former McLaren F1 Team member is the reserve / test driver for Aston Martin in F1... and he has also recently taken up the same role in WEC with Peugeot Sport. Last week, during a test session at MotorLand Aragon (Spain), he was finally able to get behind the wheel of the 9X8 that he was initially supposed to discover in Bahrain last November.

"We have to involve him in the testing anyway", Olivier Jansonnie said. "I mean : first because it's very valuable for us in terms of feedback. He's got a huge experience, so it is very interesting for us to give him some mileage with our car. But on top of that, being the reserve driver means that in any case, if one of our driver is unavailable or for any reason he must be able to jump in the car and race basically. Then this was his first time in the car and hopefully it won't be the last."

Stoffel did not hesitate when asked, and he was happy to play along. "Finally got my first taste of the Peugeot 9X8 " he posted on his social networks. "It's nice to be back on the track and to discover the Hypercar category."

Nevermind, with two starts at the 24 Hours of Le Mans - with a third place overall in 2019 in a BR Engineering BR1 and a second in LMP2 in 2021 in an Oreca 07 / Jota Sport - he would deserve for sure to be one of the full season drivers. Could his arrival at Peugeot Sport lead to a more concrete project down the line or is he just there to replace James Rossiter, who has been appointed Maserati's Team Principal in Formula E? 

"I think it's a bit of both probably", the Peugeot 9X8 technical director answered. "For sure Stoffel got a very busy schedule. He's also involved with DS in Formula E so he was already a driver from the Stellantis group. So it was quite natural for us to ask him to to fulfill this position. It's very important we can count on our drivers across all the programs we're running as Stellantis Motorsport. That's the main thing. Now, to know whether there's something more than that, it's a bit early to tell. I think we first need to check how we can make it work with his his current schedule. As you mentioned he is very busy and that's actually a very positive sign for a race driver so we must see for this year how we can handle."

In the meantime, Stoffel will head to Bahrain this week for the F1 winter tests (23 to 25 February).