The 24 Hours of Le Mans: 62 Cars and Over 350,000 Spectators
This weekend, France hosts the annual 24 Hours of Le Mans, with 62 cars competing across three classes for endurance racing glory.
The 24 Hours of Le Mans, one of motorsport's three biggest races alongside the Indianapolis 500 and Monaco Grand Prix, runs for the 94th time this year. First held in 1923, the event was created as a grueling test for the automotive industry and remains closely tied to road car technology, having pioneered innovations like disc brakes and hybrid systems.
This year's race features 62 cars divided into three classes. The top class, Hypercar, includes factory teams with professional drivers. Cars are built to either LMH specifications—like Ferrari's in-house design and Aston Martin's Valkyrie, which started as a road car—or the more affordable LMDh regulations used by Alpine, BMW, Cadillac, and newcomer Genesis. Ferrari has won every Le Mans since Hypercar's introduction in 2023 but hasn't won any other World Endurance Championship race since last year's French event.
The second class is LMP2, featuring identical Gibson V8 engines and no hybrid systems. These cars have more aerodynamic downforce than Hypercars, making them more enjoyable to drive. The class includes pro-am teams with amateur drivers, among them tech entrepreneurs like the creator of Ruby on Rails, co-founders of GitHub and Crowdstrike, and Gray Newell, son of Valve's Gabe Newell, who owns the Aston Martin team.
The third class is LMGT3, featuring 25 cars based on production road cars. All teams must include at least one bronze and one silver driver. Two women are competing: Doriane Pin, last year's Formula 1 Academy winner, and Lilou Wadoux in a Ferrari. The Iron Dames team has unfortunately lost funding.
The race starts Saturday at 4 p.m. local time (10 a.m. ET, 7 a.m. PT). In the US, it can be watched on HBO or Tru, or via the FIAWEC+ streaming service, which is no longer geo-blocked. Free commentary is available from Radio Le Mans.
