When the moribund GTE Pro class stole the show at Le Mans

The GTE class faces a time of transition, with Ferrari and Porsche both committing resources to Hypercar programmes for next year's World Endurance Championship and GT3 cars confirmed to take over from 2024. But at its pomp in the recent past, the GTE Pro class pitched manufacturers and top drivers into the tightest of duels

It seems hard to imagine the Le Mans 24 Hours without GT cars. Road-going machinery is an important part of the history of the place, but for a short period straddling the late 1980s and the early 1990s the grid was entirely made up of prototypes. That changed in 1993. The Sportscar World Championship had been axed, and the French enduro was crying out for cars. The reintroduction of GT classes saved the day.

The grid at Le Mans in 1992 in the final year of the ailing SWC numbered just 28 cars. The following year there were 49 entered, and just over half of them were GT cars.

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Author Gary Watkins

Gary Watkins has, for reasons best known to himself, devoted all his working life to covering sportscar racing. This season is his 33rd as a motorsport journalist, during which time he has reported on major long-distance events on four continents and approaching 80 24-hour races. He reckons a degree in political philosophy makes him well qualified for covering the sometimes Machiavellian world of international sportscars.

Gary, who also writes for Motor Sport, Autocourse, RACER and others, lives in Surbiton close to the former workshops of the Cooper Formula 1 team but spends more time on the road than at home for most of the year.