We've still got 4 races left of the 2027 FIA World Endurance Championship season, albeit shorter in racing hours due to the war in the Middle East, but two Hypercar manufacturers have already started testing their new challengers for 2027.
Ferrari - 499P Evo testing
Ferrari announced at Le Mans that the 499P would be getting a major update in 2027, using 3 jokers. The car's been competing essentially unchanged, apart from a joker to address and improve brake cooling, since 2023. So with most of the Italian manufacturers' rivals having brought updated cars in 2026, the 3-times Le Mans winner and current world championship car was due an update.
Quite what these updates are addressing, we don't know - Ferrari remained coy on that subject, understandably.
But, they've been out testing the new car at Monza on Tuesday, adorned in camouflage livery which is doing a good job of obscuring the details. Antonio Giovinazzi, Antonio Fuoco, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Miguel Molina did the driving, with James Calado and Nicklas Nielsen seemingly absent. Ferrari'll be testing again on Thursday, so keep an eye out online for more photos.
It seems the entire rear end is getting an update, with a very different diffuser (unpictured by Ferrari, but unofficial shots show this) and a stepped 'H' rear wing. The area behind the front wheel also seems different, with the mounting for the wing mirror seemingly having some changes.
Of course, the updates could be to things under the bodywork - suspension, transmission, engine, cooling, etc. But it seems reasonable to expect that at least 1 is an aero update.
I'll try and do some more analysis of this at some point. I'm interested in the rear end updates and changes behind the front wheels. Like Toyota's changes, in an era of Balance of Performance nullifying some updates, the aim is probably to make the car more driveable and raceable, reducing tyre wear or increasing top and/or cornering speeds. While BoP can restrict engine power, it can't restrict how efficient your aerodynamics are, which is largely what Toyota's updates for this year aimed to do, and achieved.
Peugeot - a new, new 9X8
Poor old Peugeot have been through the doldrums. They entered WEC in 2022 with a radical, ambitious, rear wing-less car. Instead of having a rear wing generating downforce and pushing the rear tyres into the track, it used ground effect to generate areas of high pressure and suck the car towards the ground.
Unfortunately, for reasons both within and without Peugeot's control, it didn't work as intended on-track. Just goes to show what works in the wind tunnel/CFD/simulator doesn't always work in the real world.
Anyway, they introduced a new car in 2024, adding a rear wing and making a whole host of other changes, which supposedly - they refuse to confirm this - used all 5 of their allowed jokers in one go.
However, the regulations say a manufacturer can homologate two cars in the homologation period. It's believed this is what Peugeot have done for 2027.
The only image Peugeot have shared of this is a fairly obscured CGI shot of the new car in raw carbon fibre.
But if you look online you'll find images of the car testing at Paul Ricard this week.
Those images show a fairly conventional-looking LMH/LMDh car, at least compared to both versions of the 9X8, the 2022 car and the 2024 machine.
It has a standard rear wing and fin arrangement, a conventional splitter and front nose section, unlike the current 9X8, standard side pods and entries for cooling, and a 'normal' or regular diffuser arrangement. Perhaps most notably, the 'tail' of the car seems to be quite long, harking back to 'long tail' cars of previous decades. It'll be interesting to see if this stays on the car next year.
What I worry about for Peugeot here is that they're going to be behind the curve yet again. With the exception of the long tail, this is what the Ferrari 499P and Toyota whatever-they're-calling-it-this-year looked like two years ago. They've moved on since then considerably - just see above for Ferrari, or look at the current Toyota TR010 compared to the old GR010.
It's still early in development so maybe there's more to come from Peugeot. Let's hope so. I'd like nothing more than to see them fighting at the front in WEC.
That said, I've heard the new car broke down this week at Paul Ricard. Not a particularly good sign of things to come... 😬
