The 84th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans runs this weekend in France and, perhaps more than any other year, this one features America and Americans prominently. The race takes place, as the name suggests, over 24 consecutive hours on the famed 8-mile Circuit de Sarthe, a circuit that is comprised in part by public roads. From all we’ve seen of the FIA World Endurance Championship and the official Le Mans Test Day, this looks very much like it might be one for the ages. With the race start on Saturday looming, let’s take a look at some of the American teams and more in the four classes.
Actually, before I subject you to my rambling on a sport I love, let’s start with a resource guide for how to follow the race.
Watch the race
You can watch the whole race starting on Saturday at 9 a.m. ET on the FOX Sports Go app (Need cable subscription) or the FIA WEC app/website (Cost is $11.29). FOX will also broadcast on TV with the following schedule (all times ET):
8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on FOX Sports 1
2:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on FOX Sports 2
6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on FOX Sports 2
7:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on FOX Sports 2
10:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. on FOX Sports 2
2:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. on FOX Sports 1
Listen to the race
If you’re on the go, Radio Le Mans will broadcast the whole race for free on the web; just click the “Play” icon next to Listen Live on their site. They also cover all free practices, qualifying sessions, and support race sessions. If you’d like to know what’s really up, listen to Radio Le Mans’ previews of the race here. You won’t find a more informative preview.
The 24 Hours of Le Mans sessions are:
Free Practice: Wednesday, June 15 @ 10:00 a.m. ET
Qualifying/Practice 1: Wednesday, June 15 @ 4:00 p.m. ET
Qualifying/Practice 2: Thursday, June 16 @ 1:00 p.m. ET
Qualifying/Practice 3: Thursday, June 16 @ 4:00 p.m. ET
Warm Up: Saturday, June 18 @ 3:00 a.m. ET
Race: Saturday, Jun 18 @ 9:00 a.m. ET
Resources
Visit the WEC’s event page for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Visualize the entry list with Andy Blackmore’s killer Spotter Guide.
Watch live timing on the WEC site.
Find Practice and qualifying results on Al Kamel System’s site.
Tweet to the official 24 Hours of Le Mans Twitter account. Hashtag is #LEMANS24.
The Racetrack
Don’t listen to me. Let three-time Le Mans winner Allan McNish talk you through the circuit from the documentary Truth in 24. The circuit has had some safety changes but is largely unchanged. OK, let’s look at some of the race teams at Le Mans.
LMP1
The top Le Mans Prototype class is the only one without American ties, but there’s a 99.9 percent chance the winner will come from this class. Three factory-supported teams run the most technologically advanced race cars in the world with hybrid powertrains, kinetic energy recovery systems, and some mind-boggling aerodynamics. While the cars’ electric motors cannot only be deployed for short periods of time per the Le Mans rules and while horsepower figures have been a bit vague, it’s thought that the power numbers peak well north of 1,000 HP and possibly closer to 1,500.
In a road racing car.
That runs for 24 straight hours. Remarkable.
I’ll skip an in-depth preview, but the Porsche 919 Hybrid (above) is the defending Le Mans and WEC champion and will wear #1 and #2 in the race. Audi’s R18 is redesigned for this year with some daunting aerodynamic design and, well, Audi has won 13 times at Le Mans since 2000. Toyota’s redesigned TS050 has shown a lot of promise after a disappointing 2015. Toyota won the WEC title in 2014, but a Le Mans win has eluded them thus far. To date in 2016, they’ve all appeared more or less on equal footing with the Porsches maybe a tad quicker.
The big story so far, however, has been reliability issues for the factory teams with many of the cars having problems in the WEC’s opening rounds at Silverstone and Spa Francorchamps. That’s a stark contrast to last year when the eight factory entries from the three teams occupied the top eight spots at the checkered flag. If the hybrid LMP1 teams all falter, the Rebellion Racing R-Ones from the privateer Swiss team have looked strong with their non-hybrid LMP1 cars. While it’s unlikely they’ll win overall, a podium for Rebellion would be a major coup for a non-factory team. If you’re rooting for an underdog, there’s seldom been a better one at Le Mans.
LMP2
The Le Mans Prototype 2 category is slightly slower than the LMP1 cars on pace, but more importantly the cars are cost-capped and the driver lineups must include one non-professional driver. Amateur racers have always been part of Le Mans’ history so this is something of a traditionalist class and it is here that America is well-represented in the prototype ranks. Here’s a rundown of the Americans in LMP2:
#30 Extreme Speed Motorsports, Ligier JS P2-Nissan (Scott Sharp, Ed Brown, Johannes Van Overbeek) – As the owner of ESM, Brown’s driving is part of the deal. While he has made large strides in driving an LMP2 car in the last couple of seasons, he’s still generally off the pace of other “gentleman” drivers in the class. Sharp is still, well, sharp and Van Overbeek has been part of ESM’s program for many, many years. This is the team’s “B” car and a Top 5 in the class is probably a best-case scenario for them.
#31 Extreme Speed Motorsports, Ligier JS P2-Nissan (Ryal Dalziel, Luis Felipe Derani, Chris Cumming) – These are ESM’s heavy hitters. Dalziel is a bulldog of a Scotsmen and perhaps Scotsman and Audi winner Allan McNish’s spiritual successor while Canadian driver Cumming is one of the best amateur prototype drivers from this side of the Atlantic. Pipo Derani is ESM’s real star, however. The young Brazilian turned in stellar drives in both the Daytona 24 Hours and Sebring 12 Hours to give ESM much-needed wins, albeit with a Honda motor in those IMSA-sanctioned races. He has, however, also put the European Nissan-powered car on the podium in both the WEC’s opening rounds. Expect excitement when he’s in the car, especially if he gets a chance to square off with Nicolas Lapierre in the #36 Signatech Alpine-Nissan.
#40 Krohn Racing, Ligier JS P2-Nissan (Tracey Krohn, Nic Jonsson, Joao Barbosa) – This year marks the 12th consecutive Le Mans for Krohn and Jonsson together, which will set an all-time record for most races with the same driver pairing. Much like Ed Brown, Krohn is something of a liability in the car but since it’s his name on the side of the car, little else matters. With the eye-searing green paint on this Ligier, it’s tough to miss Krohn Racing. If Krohn is having a good day in the car, a podium should be within reach.
#48 Murphy Prototypes, Oreca 03R-Nissan (Ben Keating, Jeroen Bleekemolen, Marc Goossens) – IMSA fans will know this trio from driving Dodge Vipers in the GTLM and GTD classes. With their GTE-AM Viper buried on the reserve list, Keating essentially rented Murphy’s entry with the older-spec Oreca chassis. Bleekemolen is a pro’s pro and competitive in any car while Goossens is a wily and often underrated veteran. Keating is a wildcard here; he’s certainly been fast in Vipers in the past, but a prototype is a vastly different animal from the GT cars he’s driven in the past.
#49 Michael Shank Racing, Ligier JS P2-Honda (John Pew, Oz Negri, Laurens Vanthoor) – The Shank Racing crew make their Le Mans debut and will do so with the lone Honda engine in the field. The team run a Honda in the IMSA series, but Le Mans rulemakers did not homologate the 3.5-liter version from IMSA competition and Shank will instead run the 2.7-liter V6. In the past, it hasn’t proven as quick as the Nissan V8, but if it’s reliable, this is a solid crew to take it to the podium. Pew and Negri are the regular IMSA pairing and very familiar with the chassis (if not the engine) while Vanthoor is absolutely one of the world’s best GT drivers and a man who gets stronger throughout a stint. Expect him to hang with the best in the class. Fun fact: Shank is renting this car from ESM and it’s the exact same car that won the 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring. As far as anyone has been able to figure out, no one chassis has ever won both those and Le Mans.
GTE-PRO
This is the second all-professional category of the four and will feature cars that are almost entirely back by manufacturers. Ford’s return to Le Mans is certainly the big story here, but with an incredibly amount of driver and pitlane talent from five manufacturers, this is a wide-open battle that in addition to those listed below, includes three Porsche entries and a pair of very strong Aston Martin Vantage V8s. We’ll throw in all three Ferraris below just to be inclusive of that rivalry.
#66 Chip Ganassi Racing Team UK, Ford GT (Olivier Pla, Stefan Mucke, Billy Johnson) – Ford’s 50th anniversary of their Le Mans victory of Ferrari starts here. The pace hasn’t appeared to have been on par with the also-new Ferrari 488 in WEC competition so far, but I suspect we’ll see the Blue Oval gloves come off after the green flags drops. This car was written off after a massive crash at Spa with Mucke at the wheel, but expect nothing but the best from this Ganassi crew. Pla and Mucke are known and excellent quantities while young American Billy Johnson has very little race experience in a high-powered GT car. However, he was virtually unbeatable in lower divisions of GT racing and has logged extensive hours in the Ford GT as one of Multimatic Motorsports’ chief test drivers.
#67 Chip Ganassi Racing Team UK, Ford GT (Marino Franchitti, Andy Priaulx, Harry Tincknell) – The all-British crew come from pretty serious pedigree at Le Mans. Marino Franchitti is indeed Dario’s brother, but he’s been an ace sports car driver for many years. Marino’s first factory GT ride is long overdue and well-earned. Priaulx moves over from many years as a BMW factory touring car and GT driver while Tincknell is a former LMP2 class winner at Le Mans who Ford nabbed from the defunct Nissan LMP1 program.
#68 Chip Ganassi Racing Team USA, Ford GT (Joey Hand, Dirk Muller, Sebastien Bourdais) – Like Priaulx, Hand and Muller were both plucked from BMW’s factory program and neither are lacking for pace or the ability to get down and dirty in a GT scrap. Bourdais hails from Le Mans, France, and is the hometown hero. However, he’s more than a political play with Le Mans’ legendarily finicky governing body; the four-time ChampCar champion and current IndyCar driver is a good match for the Ferrari lineup that will oppose Ford.
#69 Chip Ganassi Racing Team USA, Ford GT (Ryan Briscoe, Richard Westbrook, Scott Dixon) – Australian Briscoe moves to the program after years with Penske and Ganassi in IndyCar followed by an extended journeyman period that included time as a third driver for Corvette. Westbrook is mild-mannered Brit that can intimidate on the track and, like Briscoe, he also served several years as third Corvette driver. To date, these are the only two drivers to win a race with the Ford, taking the maiden win at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. The real excitement, however, should come from multiple IndyCar champion and former Indy 500 winner Dixon in his Le Mans debut. Dixon has shown remarkable resolve and durability in sports cars, winning the Rolex 24 with Ganassi twice. He rises to the occasion under pressure like few others so don’t be surprised if he does much of the heavy lifting for this squad.
#63 Corvette Racing, Chevy Corvette C.7R (Jan Magnussen, Antonio Garcia, Ricky Taylor) – What can you say about a team that has racked up class wins in half their 16 runs at Le Mans? The Corvettes are indomitable and should be more than a match for the GTE-PRO competition. Magnussen is the crafy veteran and Taylor the very quick youngster, but Garcia quietly just might be the best of Corvette’s six regulars. These are, simply put, the best-sounding cars at Le Mans, possibly in the entire racing world.
#64 Corvette Racing, Chevy Corvette C.7R (Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner, Jordan Taylor) – The lineup here mirrors that of the sister car. Gavin is the most-experienced Corvette race in history while Taylor—who shares the #10 Corvette Daytona Prototype in IMSA competition with his brother—is a dogged young competitor. Milner has quietly developed into probably the quickest of the three and in the 2016 races at Daytona and Sebring, he has found himself carrying the heavier workload that used to fall on Gavin’s shoulders. This might be a passing-of-the-torch year for Corvette.
#82 Risi Competizione, Ferrari 488 GTE (Giancarlo Fisichella, Toni Vilander, Matteo Malucelli) – The American-owned team head to Le Mans for the first time with the 488 and all eyes will be upon the Ferrari vs. Ford battle. This is essentially the No. 3 car in the Ferrari stable with Italian team AF Corse (See below) fielding a pair of very strong cars. When two former F1 drivers are sharing the seat of the “third” car, that says loads about Ferrari’s driver depth. Malucelli has shown incredibly pace in years past that has occasionally been pockmarked with poor decision-making. If his elders can rein him in, this will be a devastatingly competitive car.
#51 AF Corse, Ferrari 488 GTE (Gianmaria Bruni, James Calado, Alessandro Per Guidi) – Bruni is simply the best Ferrari driver in the world and one of the fiercest competitors you’ll ever see in racing anywhere. He gives no quarter and his battles with other GT drivers over the years have been legendary. Calado is a rapid young Brit who had his first career WEC win snatched from his hands at Spa in May with an engine failure in the closing minutes so he’ll want redemption. Per Guidi is a solid shoe that you’ll find racing for AF Corse on any given weekend. The new Ferraris have looked very, very fast so far this year although their performance has been marred by some reliability problems that may put them on tenuous ground over 24 hours.
#71 AF Corse, Ferrari 488 GTE (Davide Rigon, Sam Bird, Andrea Bertolini) – Like the sister car, this one is stacked. Rigon has quietly developed into a driver with pace second only to Bruni in the Ferrari camp while Bird’s open-wheel resume is astounding. Bertolini is no slouch and, to date, this car is undefeated in WEC competition.
GTE-AM
Finally, we arrive at the pro-am GT class. These cars all must run to last year’s specs and with massive performance gains in the 2016 GTE-PRO class, these will likely be the slowest cars by a significant margin. That requires some qualification, however, since they’ll still be averaging more than 120 mph per lap. This class more than any others features a glut of American equipment, teams, and drivers so it seems likely there will be an American flag somewhere on the podium after 24 grueling hours. These driver lineups must include one professional and two non-professional drivers.
#50 Larbre Competition, Chevy Corvette C.7R (Yutaka Yamagishi, Pierre Ragues, Jean-Phillippe Belloc) – As is usually the case, France’s Larbre will show up with Corvette Racing’s car from the previous year. Ragues is old hat with the car while Yamagishi makes his first Le Mans start this year. Regular pro Paolo Ruberti was a late scratch after a testing accident, which left the team to go with old standby Belloc after he and Nicky Catsburg both drove the car at Test Day. Larbre have multiple class wins so don’t be surprised if this one is lingering around the class podium late in the race.
#57 Team AAI, Chevy Corvette C.7R (Johnny O’Connell, Oliver Bryant, Mark Patterson) – The Taiwanese-flagged team have ditched Porsche for the other 2015 Corvette Racing chassis (which won Le Mans last year). Not only have AAI done that, they’ve also borrowed four-time defending Pirelli World Challenge champion and three-time Corvette Racing Le Mans winner O’Connell. While O’Connell is considerably older than his last run at Le Mans in 2010, his racing in World Challenge suggests he has lost exactly none of his pace or determination. Bryant is a veteran GT racer and Patterson has raced in the past in an LMP2 as an amateur driver. This is an intriguing car that is to some extent handicapped by a lack of pre-Le Mans testing, but more than anything, the car is sorted and should be reliable.
#62 Scuderia Corsa, Ferrari 458 Italia (Bill Sweedler, Townsend Bell, Jeff Segal) – The all-American lineup earned their Le Mans entry with a GTD championship in IMSA competition last year. Sweedler has come a long way as the team’s amateur driver and Segal won a pair of GT championships in the old Grand-Am Series. Bell comes off a strong showing in the Indianapolis 500 that functionally ended with a pitlane fracas. This should be a solid class contender if the squad’s third-place finish last year was any indication.
#88 Abu Dhabi Proton Racing (Khaled Al Qubaisi, David Heinemeier Hansson, Patrick Long) – Porsche factory ace and Californian Long will likely do much of the heavy lifting; as Patrick Dempsey’s co-driver last year, Long drove nearly 12 hours of the race. Danish entrepreneur Hansson lived in Chicago for a long period of time while competing in IMSA and has evolved into a very competent driver in a short time. Al Qubaisi is seldom blindingly fast but typically brings back the car in one piece, which is the most important thing any amateur driver can do. If Al Qubaisi gets his minimum drive time out of the way relatively early, expect Long to haul this car to the front of the field.
#89 Proton Competition (Cooper MacNeil, Leh Keen, Marc Miller) – The second All-American entry in GTE-AM includes the IMSA pairing of Keen and MacNeil but also adds regular Viper and Porsche Cayman racer Miller to the fold. MacNeil might be slightly lacking in pace for a Silver driver in this class, but Miller is a very quick Bronze driver. The balance of that could ultimately tip the race in their favor.
One final note
So there you have a quick rundown of the American teams and cars in the field, but with a 60-car entry list, there are so many more stories yet to be told. The ultimate deciding factor in Le Mans often comes down to weather; rain can throw a wrench in the works of everything and with forecasts calling for rain throughout the practice and qualifying sessions, this could be a tough race with little data in race conditions. Rain is always a possibility during the 24 hours and with temperatures expected to be cooler than normal, it might just be a good race for turbocharged cars like Ford and Ferrari. Time will tell what the racing deities bring us, but expect it to be properly epic as it’s been for several years.
Best. Race. Of. The. Year. Period.