We come back to the entry list for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, now that each and every one of the drivers in the entered cars, have been announced. Let's break down the whole list and give you a clear picture of who to watch in each class, with notes on teams and drivers where applicable. Let's start with the amazing 23 car field of Hypercars we will have this year.
Hypercar has 16 entries of course, and we go first, to those lineups.
#2 Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Series.R: Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn, & Alex Palou
#3 Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Series.R: Sebastien Bourdais, Scott Dixon, & Renger van der Zande
#4 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963: Mathieu Jaminet, Felipe Nasr, & Nick Tandy
#5 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963: Matt Campbell, Michael Christensen, & Frederic Makowiecki
#6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963: Kevin Estre, Andre Lotterer, & Laurens Vanthoor
#7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 Hybrid: Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, & Nyck de Vries
#8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 Hybrid: Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, & Ryo Hirakawa
#11 Isotta Fraschini Isotta Fraschini Tipo 6-C: Carl Bennett, Antonio Seravalle, & Jean-Karl Vernay
#12 Hertz Team Jota Porsche 963: Callum Ilott, Norman Nato, & Will Stevens
#15 BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8: Raffaele Marciello, Dries Vanthoor, & Marco Wittmann
#19 Lamborghini Iron Lynx Lamborghini SC63: Matteo Cairoli, Andrea Caldarelli, & Romain Grosjean
#20 BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8: Robin Frijns, Rene Rast, & Sheldon van der Linde
#35 Alpine Endurance Team Alpine A424: Paul-Loup Chatin, Ferdinand Habsburg, & Charles Milesi
#36 Alpine Endurance Team Alpine A424: Nicolas Lapierre, Mick Schumacher, & Matthieu Vaxiviere
#38 Hertz Team Jota Porsche 963: Jenson Button, Phil Hanson, & Oliver Rasmussen
#50 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina, & Nicklas Nielsen
#51 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P: James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi, & Alessandro Pier Guidi
#63 Lamborghini Iron Lynx Lamborghini SC63: Mirko Bortolotti, Daniil Kvyat, & Edoardo Mortara
#83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Robert Kubica, Robert Shwartzman, & Yifei Ye
#93 Peugeot TotalEnergies Peugeot 9X8 2024: Mikkel Jensen, Nico Muller, & Jean Eric Vergne
#94 Peugeot TotalEnergies Peugeot 9X8 2024: Paul di Resta, Loic Duval, & Stoffel Vandoorne
#99 Proton Competition Porsche 963: Julien Andlauer, Neel Jani, & Harry Tincknell
#311 Whelen Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Series.R: Jack Aitken, Pipo Derani, & Felipe Drugovich
I think the Hypercar class will really be broken down into two tiers. You will have some of the top running brands who have been prominent such as Ferrari, Porsche, Toyota, and Cadillac in one tier. Peugeot could also very likely be in the first tier of the competitive Hypercars. In the second tier I will put the privateer Proton Competition Porsche 963 in that one along with the third AF Corse Ferrari, which is a full-season entry. Then you get to the relative newcomers who are still finding their feet by which I mean BMW Team WRT with their two M Hybrid V8's, the two Iron Lynx Lamborghini SC63's, the two Jota Porsche 963's (they could be spoilers), the two Alpine's, and last but not least, the Isotta Fraschini.
LMP2 has 16 cars entered and each one is the venerable Oreca 07 chassis with the 4.2 liter naturally aspirated Gibson Technologies V8 engine built in England.
#9 Proton Competition Oreca 07: Maceo Capietto, Jonas Ried, & Bent Viscaal
#10 Vector Sport Oreca 07: Ryan Cullen, Patrick Pilet, & Stephane Richelmi
#14 AO by TF Oreca 07: Louis Deletraz, P.J. Hyett, & Alex Quinn
#22 United Autosports Oreca 07: Bijoy Garg, Oliver Jarvis, & Nolan Siegel
#23 United Autosports Oreca 07: Filipe Albuquerque, Ben Hanley, & Ben Keating
#24 Nielsen Racing Oreca 07: David Heinemeier-Hansson, Fabio Scherer, & Kyffin Simpson
#25 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca 07: Olli Caldwell, Roman De Angelis, & Matthias Kaiser
#28 IDEC Sport Oreca 07: Reshad de Gerus, Paul Lafargue, & Job van Uitert
#30 Duqueine Team Oreca 07: James Allen, John Falb, & Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer
#33 DKR Engineering Oreca 07: Rene Binder, Laurents Horr, & Alexander Mattschull
#34 Inter Europol Competition Oreca 07: Vladislav Lomko, Clement Novalak, & Jakub Smiechowski
#37 Cool Racing Oreca 07: Lorenzo Fluxa, Malthe Jakobsen, & Ritomo Miyata
#45 CrowdStrike Racing by APR Oreca 07: Colin Braun, Nicky Catsburg, & George Kurtz
#47 Cool Racing Oreca 07: Matt Bell, Naveen Rao, & Fredrik Vesti
#65 Panis Racing Oreca 07: Mathias Beche, Scott Huffaker, & Rodrigo Sales
#183 AF Corse Oreca 07: Ben Barnicoat, Francois Perrodo, & Nicolas Varrone
LMP2, since all the cars are pretty much equal, this class is wide open. Any of these car and driver combinations could come out on top. Inter Europol are going in as defending Le Mans champions albeit this year with a completely revised driver lineup. Jakub Smiechowski is the constant, but 2/3rds of the driver lineup with Clement Novalak and Vadislav Lomko, though they have LMP2 experience, is brand new to the team, and with LMP2 being eliminated from the full WEC season this year due to the massive subscription of Hypercars and GT3's, well, the field is wide open and a lot of it comes from the European Le Mans Series and some from the WeatherTech Championship too, I believe.
In the LMGT3 field for the GT3 production-based cars, there are 23 entries in total.
#27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Evo: Ian James, Daniel Mancinelli, & Alex Riberas
#31 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3: Augusto Farfus, Sean Gelael, & Darren Leung
#44 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3: Christopher Mies, Christian Ried, & Ben Tuck
#46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3: Ahmad Al Harthy, Maxime Martin, & Valentino Rossi
#54 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3: Francesco Castellaci, Thomas Flohr, & Davide Rigon
#55 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3: Francois Heriau, Simon Mann, & Alessio Rovera
#59 United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 Evo: Nicolas Costa, James Cottingham, & Gregoire Saucy
#60 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2: Matteo Cressoni, Franck Perera, & Claudio Schiavoni
#66 JMW Motorsport Ferrari 296 GT3: Giacomo Petrobelli, Larry ten Voorde, & Salih Yoluc
#70 Inception Racing McLaren 720S GT3 Evo: Brendan Iribe, Ollie Milroy, & Fredrik Schandorff
#77 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3: Ben Barker, Ryan Hardwick, & Zacharie Robichon
#78 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus RC F GT3: Timur Boguslavskiy, Arnold Robin, & Kelvin van der Linde
#81 TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R: Rui Andrade, Charlie Eastwood, & Tom van Rompuy
#82 TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R: Sebastien Baud, Daniel Juncadella, & Hiroshi Koizumi
#85 Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2: Sarah Bovy, Michelle Gatting, & Doriane Pin
#86 GR Racing Ferrari 296 GT3: Riccardo Pera, Daniel Serra, & Michael Wainwright
#87 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus RC F GT3: Takeshi Kimura, Jose Maria Lopez, & Esteban Masson
#88 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3: Dennis Olsen, Mikkel Pedersen, & Giorgio Roda
#91 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3 R (992): Richard Lietz, Morris Schuring, & Yasser Shahin
#92 Manthey Pure Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) Klaus Bachler, Alex Malykhin, & Joel Sturm
#95 United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 Evo: Hiroshi Hamaguchi, Nico Pino, & Marino Sato
#155 Spirit of Race Ferrari 296 GT3: Conrad Laursen, Johnny Laursen, & Jordan Taylor
#777 D'station Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Evo: Erwan Bastard, Satoshi Hoshino, & Marco Sorensen
GT3 is another wide-open field in it's first representation at the 24 Hours of Le Mans per the new rules. No real factory teams unless you count United with the McLaren's being the top-level team for them and Team WRT bolstering the Hypercar effort for BMW with two BMW M4 GT3's for the full FIA WEC and for Le Mans as well. Aston Martin, Ferrari, Porsche, Corvette, Lexus, Lamborghini, it is hard to choose and will be an extremely competitive field in the GT3 class as we have seen already this season. There you have it. All three classes ought to be extremely competitive when we get to the Le Mans 24 Hour race itself in about 40 days or less. Pencil in the date and mark it with a highlighter. Fathers' Day weekend, June 15th and 16th, 2024.
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