Le Mans 24 Hours Live Commentary and Updates

Hello and welcome to Autosport's Live text coverage of the Le Mans 24 Hours. We've finally reached race day, for some over a week since they descended on the town centre for scrutineering, and we'll be bringing you all the updates as they happen for the next day and a bit. So who is excited for the biggest endurance race in the world?

The blue ribband round of the World Endurance Championship race will start at 4:00 local time, in just under half an hour, with the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 LMDh on pole. That's thanks to a superb lap in the dying moments of Thursday evening's Hyperpole session by Kevin Estre, denying Cadillac the honour of a front-row lockout. Laurens Vanthoor will lead the field to the green flag in the car he and Estre share with Andre Lotterer, who is a three-time previous winner of the event with Audi.

Alex Lynn was the man left to lament missing out on pole position by just 0.148s, but the #2 Chip Ganassi-run Cadillac V-Series.R LMDh he shares with event rookie Alex Palou and two-time winner Earl Bamber is instead starting from seventh. Bamber incurred a five-place grid penalty for causing an avoidable collision with Sean Gelael's WRT BMW M4 GT3 car in the last round of the WEC at Spa.

The demotion for Bamber's costly misdemeanour means Sebastien Bourdais, a Le Mans native don't forget, begins his mission to secure a long-awaited maiden outright win (to add to his 2016 GTE Pro victory with Ford) from the front row of the grid in the sister #3 Caddy that competes full-time in the IMSA SportsCar Championship. Bourdais is joined by Renger van der Zande and Scott Dixon for this one.

The winner's trophy has just been delivered; cue the French national anthem.

They don't do things by halves at Le Mans. Here comes a military helicopter to drop off the French flag that will be waved by football legend Zinedine Zidane in his capacity as honorary starter. 

There are 23 cars in the top class at Le Mans this year; an impressive tally certainly, but only a fraction of the 62-car field that also encompasses 16 LMP2 cars and 23 LMGT3s. This year's race promises action everywhere you look, and no shortage of potential winners.

Toyota for instance. It had a disaster in qualifying; Kamui Kobayashi spun in the closing stages and, as his punishment for causing a red flag, had his times deleted which means the #7 GR010 HYBRID will start from the rear of the Hypercar pack. But the Japanese cars lead the way in three of the four practice sessions, and Toyota's record of five wins at this event is not to be sniffed at.

Ferrari too has shown it has the speed to win in the WEC this year, although hasn't been able to string it all together. A strategic miscue when the rain came at Imola thwarted what surely would have been a dominant victory there, and the Prancing Horse was set for glory again at Spa until red flags shuffled the deck. But the defending winner from last year is well-placed, starting third and fourth with its two factory-run cars. Antonio Giovinazzi and Nicklas Nielsen are the starting drivers in the #51 and #50 cars respectively.

Alpine's A424 LMDh is new for this year, but at the marque's home round of the WEC it has shown promising form in practice. Charles Milesi starts fifth in the first of its two Signatech-run cars, while Nicolas Lapierre goes from ninth spot. Mick Schumacher is making his Le Mans debut in the latter's #36 machine. 

Another new car at Le Mans this year is the BMW M Hybrid V8 LMDH, although it has had a season of running under its belt in the IMSA SportsCar Championship with the Rahal team. Vincent Vosse's ace WRT squad runs its two cars based on the Dallara chassis. Could it spring a surprise and mark the 25th anniversary of its 1999 win in style? Marco Wittmann starts from sixth in the #15 entry, while Rene Rast goes from 16th in the distinctively-liveried #20 'art' car.

Behind Lynn in eighth is the best of the customer cars - the #12 Jota Porsche that won at Spa but was crashed in Wednesday's night practice by Callum Ilott. Cue a hasty rebuild that was completed in record time, allowing the British team to complete a shakedown on the Le Mans air strip last night before making it out for warmup at noon. Will Stevens, twice a class-winner here before, starts the car he'll share with Ilott and Norman Nato. Jenson Button is the lead driver in the sister #38 Jota Porsche that will start 17th with Phil Hanson behind the wheel.

And we're away to begin the formation lap. 

We've yet to mention Lamborghini, which also new to the WEC this year with the Ligier-based SC63 LMDh. Its Iron Lynx partner team is fielding two cars at the same event for the first time, with its #19 car only racing in IMSA to date. Edoardo Mortara starts the #63 from 13th spot, while Andrea Caldarelli goes from P21.

Another Hypercar manufacturer that has gone under the radar so far in practice is Peugeot. This is just the third outing for its radically revamped 9X8, that now features a rear wing and no longer runs the same size tyres front-and-back - to bring it in line with the rest of the pack. Nico Muller takes the start aboard #93 in 15th, while Paul di Resta gets the first go aboard #94 from 20th spot.

LMP2 is no longer part of the WEC, but has a strong 16-car field here. Leading away from pole is Louis Deletraz, who was denied victory here on the final lap in 2021 by a freak electrical failure on his WRT-run machine. Now in an AO by TF car (every LMP2 here is an ORECA-Gibson 07), the Swiss is in one of eight pro-am P2 entries that features one bronze-graded driver that makes their living outside of racing. Could a pro-am entrant win the class outright for the first time in this rule set?

Amid all the interest in the Hypercar class, let's not forget too that there are a great deal of new manufacturers involved in LMGT3 this year, as the category replaces GTE. McLaren hasn't been at Le Mans since 1998, but now has an eligible car has returned in fine style, as Brendan Iribe's Inception Racing example (run by Yorkshire outfit Optimum Motorsport) nabbed pole. Frederik Schandorff takes the start in that car, with Alexander Malykhin (the bronze in the #92 Porsche) second and Larry Ten Voorde third in the JMW Ferrari.

As the cars approach the Ford Chicane, we're moments away from the start. Let's go racing!

And we have a change of lead on the first lap. Nielsen isn't hanging around and powers past Vanthoor on the approach to Indianapolis. 

It's also clean further back as Deletraz continues to lead in LMP2 and Schandoorf maintains the advantage in LMGT3.

The Ferraris of Giovinazzi and Kubica have 10-second penalties to serve at their first pitstops due to pit infringements in qualifying. Currently sitting pretty in fourth and fifth places, can they keep pace with Nielsen?

But second place has changed in each of the other classes with the Panis entry of Beche now up to second in LMP2, while the JMW Ferrari of ten Voorde now occupies the runner-up spot in LMGT3.

Now up to fourth comes Giovinazzi, slotting ahead of Bourdais into the Mulsanne Chicane on lap two. Stevens was elbowed back a few places on that first lap, and has tumbled back to P18. 

No places gained yet for the #7 Toyota, which started from the back of the 23-car Hypercar field in Nyck de Vries's hands. He's got a frenetic squabble ahead of him for 21st between Rene Rast's BMW and Edoardo Mortara's Lamborghini. Action everywhere at the moment as the race settles into a rhythm. 

Rast has shrugged off Caldarelli and now moves up a spot to 20th at the expense of Jean-Karl Vernay in the Isotta. Next in his sights is Paul Di Resta's Peugeot.

Vanthoor isn't letting Nielsen run away with it at the front. The gap last time around was just over a second, although Giovinazzi is notably closer to the pole-sitting Porsche than the Belgian is to the leader.

Over in LMGT3, we have another new second-placed car as Ben Barker has sent the top Proton-run Ford Mustang ahead of ten Voorde's Ferrari. Schandorff continues to lead. 

There comes Giovinazzi! He powers past Vanthoor into second on the approach to the second Mulsanne Chicane. It's a Ferrari 1-2 in the early stages. 

Behind the top three in LMGT3, Alex Malykin is almost seven seconds adrift in fourth in the Manthey Porsche and has a whole stream of cars queuing up behind him - but the Am is holding firm for now.

Meanwhile, Bell's #47 LMP2 machine remains in the pits and prospects of a cool result have already taken a major hit.

We earlier praised Malykin for keeping some faster LMGT3 drivers behind him, but he has now slipped to fifth in class as the Heart of Racing Aston of Alex Riberas has finally snuck ahead. 

Kubica isn't making the same inroads as his stablemates in the works Ferraris. He's holding station for now in fifth, behind Bourdais. 

And now the LMGT3 floodgates are starting to open as Malykin loses a further spot to the D'Station Aston Martin of Marco Sorensen.

The chief beneficiary of the double DTM champion's woes is Milesi, who moves up to P7 ahead of Makowiecki, Lynn and Lapierre.