We have spoken all about the 24 Hours of Le Mans entry list. With the rest of the season to look at, beginning this weekend in Qatar, we ought to also have a Captain Cook at the season long entry lists for Hypercar and for LMGT3. So, without further ado, here goes. In the Hypercar class as a whole, we have at least 11 teams that are set to race for a full season, showing the immense growth in the category for the second season. Before we dive into the whole situation, it must be noted, each class has a different tire supplier as determined by the FIA and the World Endurance Championship as a whole. The Hypercars run on Michelin tires, while the GT3 cars are set to run on Goodyear tires.
Starting to look at Hypercar, Cadillac has their single confirmed V Series.R entry from Chip Ganassi Racing for the full-season campaign. This is separate (yet included) with their three-car Le Mans 24 Hours effort. Cadillac Racing have New Zealand's Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn from England, and for the opener at Qatar, Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais. Two more drivers who would, could, and should likely rotate into their lineup, will be Spaniard Alex Palou and Dutchman Renger van der Zande, who is the lead driver for Ganassi Racing Cadillac in their IMSA program.
Porsche Penske Motorsports have their two Porsche 963 factory cars, cars #5 and #6, set up with the same lineups they will be using at Le Mans, for the entire 2024 season. Car #5 has Michael Christensen, the Danish racer, Fredric Makowiecki from France, and Australian Porsche ace, who has won in IMSA, and most recently in GT3 in the SRO Intercontinental GT Challenge at the Bathurst 12 Hours in Australia, his homeland, Australian driver, Matt Campbell. The sister Penske Porsche 963 #6 will have Frenchman Kevin Estre leading their team once again, alongside Andre Lotterer from Germany and Laurens Vanthoor from Belgian.
Toyota are back with their two-car GR010 Hybrid team and cars #7 and #8. Former Formula 1 and LMP2 racer Nyck de Vries, the Dutchman, is a new recruit to Toyota and will be in the #7 alongside Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi, while the #8 sister car has an unchanged lineup of Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, and Ryo Hirakawa. Isotta Fraschini, the fabled Italian brand from the 1930s, are back in racing for the first time in more than a century. The #11 Isotta Fraschini Tipo 6-C has Canadian driver Antonio Seravalle, Frenchman Jean-Karl Vernay, and Thai driver Carl Bennett.
Hertz Team Jota, they are back, with two privateer Porsche 963's on the grid. The majority of Jota's team contains British drivers. They have two Porsche 963's #12 and #38. Callum Ilott is the team leader for #12. He is joined by Will Stevens and Norman Nato, the Frenchman. All three have both open wheel and sports car racing experience. Phil Hanson steps up from LMP2 to Hypercar this year and joins the #38 team in their 963 alongside 2009 Formula 1 World Champion Jenson Button and Danish LMP2 veteran Oliver Rasmussen, making the step up to Hypercar.
On the Porsche front, there is also the #99 Proton Competition Porsche 963. This is the car slated to have Julien Andlauer of France as the lead driver sharing alongside Brit Harry Tincknell and Frenchman Julien Andlauer. So, we have covered Porsche. We have also covered Toyota and Isotta Fraschini. Let's move forward to BMW. BMW enter the World Endurance Championship for the first time and are going for glory outright at Le Mans for the first time since their win in 1999 with the all-conquering V12 LMR LMP open cockpit racer that some longtime fans like myself may remember, even though that was a quarter century ago already.
The BMW M Hybrid V8's, there are two of them in WEC to be campaigned by WRT, a longtime BMW campaigner in GT3 as well and we'll get to that, under their leadership of former drivers like Vincent Vosse, the team boss, Thierry Tassin, Pierre Dieudonne, and Kurt Mollekens. Car #15 will be shared through the season by Swiss licensed Italian racer Raffaele Marciello who has moved to BMW from Mercedes Benz, and he will be sharing with Dries Vanthoor of Belgium, and Germany's Marco Wittmann who moves across from BMW's American effort with the M Hybrid V8 in IMSA WeatherTech competition with BMW Team RLL under co-owners Bobby Rahal, David Letterman (yes, the comedian), and Mike Lanigan.
The second WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 carries #20 and this one will be driven by Dutchman Robin Frijns, Rene Rast of Germany, and South African Sheldon van der Linde. Alpine are one of two French brands on the Hypercar grid. They have two cars, #35 and #36, for their new A424 Beta Hypercar powered by the Mecachrome 3.4-liter V6 motor with a turbo. This is the same engine used in Formula 2 open wheel cars, with a turbocharger added on for more power. Paul Loup Chatin, Charles Milesi, and Ferdinand Habsburg (the Austrian Prince), share the #35 car, while in #36 it is Nicolas Lapierre, Matthieu Vaxiviere, and Mick Schumacher, son of the seven-time Formula 1 World Champion, Michael Schumacher, who himself also has a sports car racing pedigree.
Ferrari have three 499P's entered this season. The #50 has Antonio Fuoco of Italy, Spaniard Miguel Molina, and Dane Nicklas Nielsen set to drive. The sister #51 returns with the same trio that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans centenary edition last year, in 2023, with Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, and Antonio Giovinazzi. Two Italians, and British driver, of course. AF Corse have a third Ferrari 499P which looks like it will be in the Ecurie Francorchamps yellow colors, for Robert Shwartzman, the Russo-Israeli Ferrari factory driver, who will share that automobile with Poland's Robert Kubica, a former F1 and rallying driver, and Chinese driver and new Ferrari recruit, Yifei Ye.
Lamborghini are the second Italian marque on the grid. So, it will be a battle between The Prancing Horse, and The Raging Bull. The brand from Bologna will have a single full-season Lamborghini SC63 LMDh Hypercar, and a second car at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Italians Mirko Bortolotti and Edoardo Mortara join Russian driver Daniil Kvyat, a former F1 driver, on the driving trio. Peugeot TotalEnergies bring back their two 9X8's for another go around in Hypercar. Dane Mikkel Jensen sharing with Swiss Nico Muller, and Frenchman Jean Eric Vergne in the #93 while in the #94 it is Scotsman Paul di Resta as the lead driver teaming up with Frenchman Loic Duval and Belgian ex-F1 racer Stoffel Vandoorne.
Now we move to the LMGT3 class. Nine different brands are set to be represented in the production car category. We begin with Aston Martin and two distinct Vantage AMR GT3 customer efforts (all GT3 cars are meant to be run by customer teams with support from the factory but no full factory efforts like Hypercar). Heart of Racing Aston Martin, the American team lead things off with the #27 car set to be driven by American domiciled British racer Ian James who owns the team, partnering with Spaniard Alex Riberas and Italian Daniel Mancinelli.
Japan's D'station Racing with their #777 will be the second Aston on the grid. Japan's Satoshi Hoshino could very well be on the team, but right now, he is listed as a reserve driver. The full driver lineup includes Frenchmen Erwan Bastard and Clement Mateu alongside Danish Aston Martin GTE and GT3 veteran Marco Sorensen. McLaren are the other British brand in GT3 with two 720S GT3's run by the successful United Autosport team owned and operated by McLaren Formula 1 and IndyCar CEO Zak Brown. They have two cars. #59 for Brazilian Nicolas Costa, James Cottingham from Great Britain, and Swiss driver Gregoire Saucy, is the lead car.
The sister car #95 has Josh Caygill from England, Chilean sports car racer Nico Pino, and Marino Sato from Japan. Fellow Japanese driver Hiroshi Hamaguchi is also listed as To Be Confirmed. We don't know if or when he will make a start for the team in GT3 in WEC this year. Watch this space to find out if there will be selected races where Sato and Hamaguchi may alternate. Ferrari have two new Ferrari 296 GT3 V6 turbo cars entered for Vista AF Corse. The same 3-liter V6 turbo motor, the F163 engine, that powers the 499P Hypercar, is in the back of the 296 GT3. Car #54 is set to be driven by a carryover lineup from the old GTE Am class, for Switzerland's Thomas Flohr, sharing with Italian's Davide Rigon and Francesco Castellaci.
British-American driver Simon Mann is in the sister #55 car sharing with Italian Alessio Rovera and Frenchman Francois Heriau. Lamborghini will be represented in GT3 just as they are in Hypercar, with the EVO2 version of the Huracan GT3 by Iron Lynx and Iron Dames. Car #60 for Iron Lynx will be shared by Italian's Matteo Cressoni and Claudio Schiavoni, and Frenchman Franck Perera. The Iron Dames will have Michelle Gatting from Denmark, Doriane Pin of France, and Sarah Bovy of Belgium in their all-female driver lineup.
BMW Team WRT are represented in Hypercar, and also in the GT3 class, with two BMW M4 GT3's. They will carry two well-known numbers. #31 for the car of Brazilian Augusto Farfus, Indonesian Sean Gelael, and British GT3 racer Darren Leung, and #46 for MotoGP motorcycle legend, Italian Valentino Rossi, who continues his journey in car racing and specifically in endurance racing and in GT3, alongside Belgian Maxime Martin, and on their WEC team, Omani racer Ahmad Al Harthy, who moves over from Aston Martin to BMW.
Lexus, the American luxury brand affiliate of Toyota, joins the GT3 class with the RC F GT3, a car that has been around for about seven years, mostly in America, in the IMSA championship, is now making it's WEC debut in GT3. The French Akkodis ASP Team are running two cars. #78 for Russian racer Timur Boguslavskiy, sharing with Arnold Robin of France, and South African Kelvin van der Linde, brother of Sheldon van der Linde who races one of the factory BMW Hypercars. The #87 sister Lexus V8 powered coupe will be shared by former Toyota Hypercar driver Jose Maria Lopez of Argentina (moving to the Lexus arm of the company to race GT3) alongside former Ferrari driver Takeshi Kimura of Japan, and Esteban Masson of France.
Former Aston Martin campaignerlA, TF Sport, under team boss Tom Ferrier, they will be the Corvette representatives for General Motors in LMGT3 with the brand-new Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R. The team has two cars, #81 and #82. #81 is set to be driven by Angolan former LMP2 racer Rui Andrade, sharing with Irishman Charlie Eastwood, and Belgian Tom van Rompuy. In the sister #82, newly minted Corvette driver, Spaniard Daniel Juncadella, is set to share with Frenchman Sebastien Baud, and Japanese driver Hiroshi Koizumi.
Ford will be giving GM a run for their money as the Detroit horsepower rivalry continues just as it has now for six decades. The Blue Oval will be hoping to best the bowtie with two Ford Mustang GT3's with their 5.4-liter Coyote V8 engines, with two cars from Proton Competition. Britain's Ben Barker is joined in the #77 car by American Ryan Hardwick and Canadian Zacharie Robichon. Hardwick and Robichon move along with Proton, from Porsche equipment to the new Mustang GT3. The sister #88 entry is set to be shared by another convert from Porsche over to Ford, Norwegian Dennis Olsen, alongside Dane Mikkel Pedersen, and Italian Giorgio Roda.
Last, but certainly not least, we turn to Porsche and the 911 GT3R (992) model, which will be campaigned by Manthey Racing under two different banners. The German squad are competing as Manthey EMA under their own flag with the #91 car to be driven by Austrian Porsche veteran Richard Lietz, Dutch driver Morris Schuring, and Australian-Palestinian GT3 racer Yasser Shahin. The sister car #92 is under the Lithuanian flag led by Austrian Porsche driver Klaus Bachler, set to be joined by Belarusian racer Alex Malykhin licensed under the Saint Kitts & Nevis flag, and by German Porsche driver Joel Sturm. So, there you have it. The runners and riders set for the full season FIA World Endurance Championship in 2024 beginning this weekend in Qatar for the Qatar 1,812 Kilometers.
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