24 Hours of Le Mans Preview: Hypercar
- Aaron Carroll
- Jun 11
- 4 min read
Written by Aaron Carroll, Edited by Vyas Ponnuri
It’s time for endurance racing's main event, the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The race will get underway this Saturday, June 14th, at 14:00 GMT, with a field of 62 cars set to compete in the WEC (World Endurance Championship) blue ribbon event.
21 of these 62 cars will compete for overall victory in the Hypercar class. The class runs on the LMdh (Le Mans Daytona Hypercar) and LMh (Le Mans Hypercar) regulations, used in WEC and IMSA as the top tier of prototype racing in the world.
The Le Mans hypercar grid will feature the entire 2025 WEC grid, alongside three additions coming from the IMSA stable.
The first of these is the addition of a third Penske-run Porsche 963, alongside the two existing WEC full-season entries. IMSA regulars Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy will be joined by reigning Formula E champion Pascal Wehrlein in the one-off for the Le Mans No.4 car.
The No.5 and No.6 cars will retain the same lineups from their WEC campaigns. Julian Andlauer, Michael Christensen and Mathieu Jaminet will be in the No.5, while Laurens Vanthoor, Kevin Estre and Matt Campbell will pilot the No.6.
Interestingly, if Tandy and Nasr in the No.4 or Vanthoor in the No.6 win the race, they will be the first drivers to complete the endurance racing triple crown. The trio won the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring together in the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar championship, and are now looking for the third jewel in France.
The trio of Penske cars will be hoping to have a successful Le Mans, having gotten off to a slow start to the WEC season, following their championship-winning 2024 season.
Next on the entry list is the pair of Toyotas, one of which features a special livery. The No.7 car will run with a red livery inspired by the Toyota GT-ONE car that raced at Le Mans in 1998 and 1999. Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries will take to the wheel of this new-look car.
The No.8, on the other hand, will run with the normal black livery, with the Japanese brand symbolising the past and the present with their split liveries. Sébastien Buemi, Ryo Hirakawa and Brendon Hartley will be the drivers to take the wheel of that car.
The entire Toyota Gazoo Racing team will be looking for their sixth victory at Le Mans and to break Ferrari’s current two-year streak.
The pair of Aston Martin Valkyries will have a different goal in mind. While they may not be looking for victory, their goal will be to test the reliability of the new car and make it to the end of the twice round the clock event.
The No.007 will be driven by Harry Ticknell, Tom Gamble and Ross Gunn, while the No.009 will feature Alex Riberas, Marco Sorenson and Roman de Angelis.
The two Hertz Team Jota Cadillacs will also run with their full season WEC lineups. The No.12 will see Will Stevens, Norman Nato and Alex Lynn at the wheel, while the No.38 will feature former Formula One world champion Jenson Button, Earl Bamber and home hero Sebastian Bourdais.
Cadillac will be looking to get back to the pace they had in the opening round at Qatar, and bring home the company's first win at Le Mans, and the first American winner overall since Ford in 1969.
The two BMWs will have a similar goal, looking to take their first-ever WEC victory in the M Hybrid V8. The No.15 will have Raffaele Marciello, former F1 driver Kevin Magnussen, and BMW ace Dries Vanthoor at the wheel, and will be ably supported by the No.20 of Rene Rast, Sheldon van der Linde and Robin Frijins.
The two Alpines will be looking to stay in the top ranks and continue to challenge for victories. Paul-Loup Chatin, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi will be in the No.35, while Mick Schumacher, Frederick Makowiecki and Jules Gounon will look to propel the No.36 up to the top step of the podium.
The trio of Ferraris come into Le Mans having won all three of the season's races so far, and back-to-back victories at the Circuit de la Sarthe in the last two years.
The No.51 of Alessandro Pier Guidi, Antonio Giovinazzi and James Calado come into the race as championship leaders, with the No.50 of Miguel Molina, Antonio Fuoco and Nicklas Nielsen trailing by 18 points in second.
Behind them in third is the No.83 privateer AF Corse Ferrari driven by Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Phillip Hanson, looking to take a step ahead of the two factory cars and take their second WEC victory, and their first at Le Mans.
The No.93 and No.94 Peugeots will be looking for improved pace in their home race, to finally begin consistently challenging for podiums. Paul di Resta, Jean-Éric Vergne and Mikkel Jensen will take the wheel of the No.93 9X8, while Loic Duval, Malthe Jakobsen and Stoffel Vandoorne will pilot the No.94.
The fourth Porsche at Le Mans is the No.99 Proton Competition car. Compared to their Penske counterparts, the Proton 963 has struggled for pace this season, as well as in 2024. Nicolas Pino, Neel Jani and Nicolas Varrone will be hoping to change the car's fortunes for the big race on Saturday.
Finally, coming to the other two IMSA entries, the No.101 Cadillac will be run by Wayne Taylor Racing (WTR), driven by Filipe Albuquerque and Wayne Taylor’s sons Jordan and Ricky. They will be joined by the fourth Cadillac, run by Whelen Engineering and driven by Jack Aitken, Felipe Drugovich and Frederick Vesti.
On the weather front, there seems to be a small chance of rain on Saturday, with an even lower chance on Sunday. However, the weather at Le Mans can be unpredictable, so the race could still be affected by rain at some point, with last year’s race featuring pockets of rain.
With 21 Hypercars set to run in the race, and the added factor of LMP2 and LMGT3 traffic, Le Mans is a must watch event. The race can be viewed on WEC TV for a fee of 18 euros.
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