Peugeot joined F1 in 1994, but it was a disastrous spell.

After winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans twice in the early 1990s, Peugeot decided to enter F1 with the same engine. The World Sportscar Championship regulations were not much different to the Formula One regulations around engines so they could easily change the engine to fit F1. But it simply did not go as well.

After leaving Ford-Cosworth at the end of 1993, McLaren chose to go with Peugeot engines. The engines were heavily unreliable, as McLaren finished 15 out of 32 entries that season, with 8 of the 17 retirements coming from engine failure. When it didn’t blow up, it wasn’t bad, as Martin Brundle scored two podiums and Mika Hakkinen scored six podiums.

McLaren left, and Eddie Jordan, the owner of Jordan Grand Prix, wanted an engine deal where they were the number one partner, so they signed on with Peugeot. Although a double podium came in Canada in 1995 and three podiums came in 1997, it simply wasn’t good enough. They did iron out their reliability issues however, as in 1997, not a single Jordan retired directly from engine failure. The performance still wasn’t to standard and Jordan and Prost Grand Prix decided to swap engines. For Prost it was a major coup as it was perfect PR for the French team.

Peugeot and Prost’s partnership was destined to fail however. In spite of a French partnership between Alain Prost and Peugeot with a French lead driver in Olivier Panis, the engine was awful, It was overweight and it was unreliable, partly because the engine facilities were moved. The results showed a huge decline as Prost went from 21 points in 1997 to only one in 1998 with Jarno Trulli finishing sixth in the attrition-filled Belgian Grand Prix. As stated, the reliability was poor with seven engine failures that season.

1999 was better in qualifying, but there was still a lot of mechanical failures, with six engine failures. One particular race went well, which was the European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring. Olivier Panis started in sixth and Trulli in tenth. In a wet-dry race, Prost almost always had one car in the points, with Trulli and Panis both surviving a massive race of attrition to finish second and eighth. Due to the points system at the time, only Trulli scored and the second place finish was one of four points finishes that season. The 1999 season was better as Prost finished seventh in the standings. 

The final season with Prost and Peugeot was even worse, as Prost, for the first time in their history, failed to score points in the whole season and thus decided to ditch the Peugeot engine. Another six engine failures, combined with awful car reliability, meant that drivers Nick Heidfeld and Jean Alesi finished a combined 10 times out of 33 starts.

Peugeot left F1 at the end of 2000, with them choosing to focus on the World Rally Championship.

A story which began with disaster for one team in McLaren ended in disaster for another as at the end of the following season, Prost closed.