10 things we've learned from Le Mans so far

1. Ferrari isn’t as fast as it looks

Ferrari isn’t as far ahead of Toyota as the timesheets from qualifying suggest. The gap between Antonio Fuoco on pole and Brendon Hartley in third at the end of Thursday’s Hyperpole session was 1.4s, but that’s to ignore a quicker lap from Kamui Kobayashi that would have reduced the margin to 1.2s had his mark not been scrubbed out for a track limits infraction.

Toyota, though, didn’t get the breaks with the red flag that stopped the half-hour session with five minutes left on the clock. The #8 Toyota GR010 HYBRID Le Mans Hypercar with Hartley at the wheel was on course for a time significantly quicker than his eventual best when the stoppage came.

He improved on tyres past their best in the five-minute dash that followed the red, but his aborted lap was half a second up on that after the first two sectors.

Ferrari executed to perfection when it mattered on Thursday evening. It got its two 499P LMHs, Fuoco and Alessandro Pier Guidi at the wheel, out in tandem and they each gave the other a tow over the course of their two runs.

“We were happy with our strategy,” said Ferrari’s sportscar racing technical director Ferdinando Cannizzo. “But we know the gap is not the real one.” GW

2. Toyota now has two strong cars

The #8 Toyota has moved closer to its sister #7 machine

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

Toyota is no longer going into the race with one hand tied behind its back. That’s not a reference to the Balance Performance hit the Japanese manufacturer took in the lead-up to the race, but rather the lack of pace of the #8 GR010 at the start of the week.

Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa struggled to get anywhere near the sister car at the Le Mans Test Day in the absence of Sebastien Buemi. It picked up the pace on Wednesday over one lap but not over a stint. The team was perplexed and not offering any explanation.

By the end of play on Thursday, it was content that it had brought the car into the ballpark. The solution was pretty straightforward: the drivers of #8 adopted the set-up of the sister car. GW

3. Don’t rule out Porsche

Makowiecki was the best of the Porsches as two of the Penske-run entries made it into Hyperpole

Photo by: Marc Fleury

Although it took a first win with its new 963 LMDh in IMSA’s Long Beach round, Porsche hasn’t looked much like threatening for a victory in the three rounds of the WEC so far with its new Penske-run machines. But the German manufacturer served notice of its intentions to challenge Toyota and Ferrari when Laurens Vanthoor unofficially topped the Test Day, only to lose the quickest time of the day for a track limits violation.

The quickest of the Porsches got within six-tenths of the pace in first qualifying, with Frederic Makowiecki best of the rest behind the Ferraris and Toyotas in fifth, while Felipe Nasr ensured two of the three works 963s made it into Hyperpole - and Kevin Estre barely missed out in ninth amid traffic in a messy red-flagged session. When the dust settled on Hyperpole, the Porsches of Nasr and Makowiecki ended up fourth and seventh respectively, and the 963s certainly appear competitive enough to keep the Le Mans Hypercars on their toes.

Porsche has the advantage in numbers, with its mostly IMSA-crewed third car of Nasr, Nick Tandy and Mathieu Jaminet already proving a worthwhile extra undertaking for the works squad. And don’t forget the customer Jota 963, which failed to set a lap in qualifying due to hybrid issues but has shown flashes of speed.

A historic 20th outright win for the Stuttgart brand isn’t the outcome you’d necessarily bet on right now, but it can’t be discounted. JK

4. Freak retirements can still happen in the modern age

Mechanical dramas that stymied the Ganassi Cadillac in Hyperpole will be a warning to others

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

The other LMDh in the Hypercar field, Cadillac, likewise showed strong pace in Hyperpole, particularly when Sebastien Bourdais briefly put the best of the V-Series.Rs third-fastest. That was before the Frenchman’s car suffered a dramatic fire that forced him to park up at the first chicane on the Mulsanne straight, bringing out the red flags.

The images of Bourdais escaping his smouldering Caddy (he was thankfully uninjured) felt like something of a throwback to a bygone era. It was later revealed the cause of the inferno was a burst fuel hose, but it shows that despite meticulous preparations - including in the case of Cadillac, a two-day endurance test at Portimao - freak reliability troubles can never be ruled out.

Had Bourdais’ lap stood, it would have put him fifth on the grid, but causing the stoppage demotes the #3 Chip Ganassi-run machine to eighth, two places behind the sister car of Earl Bamber - who feels could have gone quicker without the red flag.

“I think we could have been in the top three or four and were on a good lap when the red flag came out and lost it,” said Bamber. “We have a car with good race pace, and with everything we've talked about all week - quick, consistent pit stops and the reliability that this car has shown throughout this season - we'll be in contention for the victory.” JK

5. There's work to do at Peugeot 

Neither of the 9X8s made it through to the pole shootout

Photo by: Marc Fleury

Peugeot is making progress with the avante-garde 9X8 LMH that has so far yet to trouble the front-runners in the World Endurance Championship this year. There’s still work to do, and the Peugeot Sport hierarchy is admitting as much.

“We have to do better to catch up the front-runners,” said Peugeot motorsport boss Jean-Marc Finot after its two cars missed the cut for the top-eight Hyperpole session. “We have been progressing race by race, but we are still not at the pace we were expecting.”

Peugeot has offered some glimpses of pace so far. Gustavo Menezes was second fastest in the opening session of the Test Day, only six-tenths off Ferrari. The two French cars were a similar margin off the pace in opening free practice, but when it came to the opening session of qualifying on Wednesday its rivals made much bigger gains.

The Pugs were suddenly more than two seconds off the pace and their drivers could take their time over dinner on Thursday evening. GW

6. Jota still a strong LMP2 threat despite split focus

Fittipaldi missed out on LMP2 pole, but he's been quick all week in Jota's ORECA

Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt

Given its formidable record at Le Mans, it should be no surprise to see Jota regularly featuring at the sharp end of the LMP2 timesheets. But the key difference for the 2014, 2017 and 2022 class winner is that its efforts are now split between its solo ORECA-Gibson 07 and its new Porsche 963 LMDh effort. And with reigning WEC LMP2 champions Antonio Felix da Costa and Will Stevens stepping up to the Hypercar class, Jota honour is defended by a lineup that had a best finish of sixth from the opening three WEC rounds of 2023.

Yet from the outset on Test Day, Jota has been consistently at the sharp end of the P2 pack with Pietro Fittipaldi, Oliver Rasmussen and David Heinemeier-Hansson, underlining that the British outfit will again be a victory threat. Only a late lap from Prema’s Mirko Bortolotti in FP2 interrupted its stranglehold on Wednesday, after Fittipaldi was fastest in FP1 and qualifying, and the Brazilian was again quickest in FP3 before he was pipped by Paul-Loup Chatin’s IDEC Sport machine in Hyperpole.

Chatin admitted to Autosport that his pole run, repeating his 2018 feat with IDEC, had required a set-up “bet” to pay dividends, but playing the odds isn’t typically a tactic associated with success in the 24 Hours. In what could be its Le Mans LMP2 swansong, Jota goes in as a team to beat. JN

7. Garage 56 NASCAR is surpassing expectations

The Hendrick-run Chevrolet Camaro has become a fan favourite and is quick too

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

A NASCAR is probably not the obvious choice of machinery for the demands of the 8.47-mile Le Mans circuit. But, despite Hendrick Motorsports' Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 Garage 56 entry being unconventional, it's fast. Very fast.

The car has turned heads up and down the paddock and proved a hit with spectators - and not just because of the roar of its 5.8-litre V8 engine. Qualifying over four seconds faster than the best of the GTE Am entries is quite some achievement and exceeds more modest pre-event expectations. Even race organiser the ACO has amended the regulations so the Chevy will start at the rear of the LMP2 runners rather than at the very back.

“To get down to the 3m 48s range I was really pleasantly surprised,” admits Hendrick's vice president of competition Chad Knaus.

But the race is likely to be a different story. Yes, the NASCAR has the advantage of being piloted by three quality drivers - Jenson Button, Jimmie Johnson and Mike Rockenfeller - rather than having a bronze-graded amateur behind the wheel, but the drivers and team bosses expect race pace to be much closer to the GTE cars. And, if weather forecasts of heavy rain are correct, it will struggle even more. Not that it stops it from being another of the brilliant stories of the long Le Mans history. SL

8. Some Ferraris never die

The venerable #66 JMW Ferrari chassis is embarking on its seventh Le Mans start having won in 2017

Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt

The British JMW Motorsport team has certainly got its money’s worth out of the Ferrari 488 GTE it’s racing here. The car, now in GTE Evo specification, is competing at Le Mans for a seventh time.

JMW started racing the 488 as soon as it became eligible for GTE Am in 2017 and notched up a class victory with Will Stevens, Dries Vanthoor and Rob Smith at the first time of asking. The car has been coming back to the French enduro around a campaign in the European Le Mans Series ever since. It’s needed a bit of expert welding along the way — there was a sizeable shunt at Monza a few years back — but never a new chassis.

There appears to be life in the old dog yet. Louis Prette and then Thomas Neubauer topped the two sessions at last Sunday’s Test Day, though bronze-rated Giacomo Petrobelli couldn’t keep up the good work in qualifying.

This long-serving Ferrari will bow out at the end of the season; the GTE class is being replaced by LMGT3 next year. JMW’s warhorse will be put out to pasture as some kind of record-breaker. The team has been told that its 488 holds the record for the most Le Mans starts by a single chassis.

Difficult to verify, that one. Answers on a postcard, please. GW

9. Hypercar's popularity having unforeseen impact

The boosted Hypercar field means GTE Am drivers need to be more wary of their mirrors

Photo by: Nikolaz Godet

The massive increase in numbers in the top-tier Hypercar division for this year may have helped boost interest in the race, but it also has a knock-on impact for the other classes.

Several of the GTE Am drivers have suggested that the additional lappery caused by 16 LMH/LMDhs, compared to the five of 2022, could have a significant impact on GTE's final appearance at Le Mans. Corvette racer Nicky Catsburg says traffic could cause “some issues” and his pole-winning team-mate Ben Keating believes it will be “interesting”.

“There's so many of them coming so often,” adds TF Sport Aston Martin driver Charlie Eastwood, who is due to start second. “The lights on the Hypercars are even more pronounced than on the LMP2s and you have no perception of where they are.

“You don't know if they're 10 seconds back, two seconds back, on your bumper and to drive multiple stints fast here you need to know when you're going to back off and let them through and when you're going to commit to the corner.

“I really found it hard to judge that commitment and you can just haemorrhage lap time so easily. It's going to be a massive factor.” SL

10. Le Mans hydrogen future takes shape

Toyota took the wraps off its GR H2 Racing Concept on Friday

Photo by: Toyota Racing

The future of the top class at Le Mans became a little clearer to picture on Friday when Toyota unveiled its ‘GR H2 Racing Concept’.

Hydrogen-powered vehicles will be eligible to race at Le Mans from 2026, with event organiser the Automobile Club de l’Ouest keen for all cars in the top class to use hydrogen propulsion by 2030. When the covers came off the prototype that Toyota had stationed in the ACO's Hydrogen Village, plans that had been in the works since the formation of a manufacturer working group in 2017 took tangible form for the first time.

Originally intended to be a single-make class for hydrogen fuel cells using chassis built by ORECA and Red Bull Advanced Technologies, the hydrogen class has been opened up for manufacturers to fully optimise their cars according to their preferred technological solutions – whether fuel cells or hydrogen-powered internal combustion engines. That freedom appears to have been fundamental to enticing Toyota, which has entered a hydrogen-powered Corolla in Japanese endurance events.

It is hoped that Toyota's leap of faith will prompt other manufacturers to follow suit. The ACO’s hydrogen consultant Bernard Niclot told Autosport: “We are in talks with other manufacturers and I hope that in the next months, years, there will be other such announcements.”

Even if it’s currently only one manufacturer, the ACO’s vision of a hydrogen future for Le Mans is taking form. JN

By Gary Watkins, Jamie Klein, Stephen Lickorish and James Newbold

Ligier launched a demonstrator built in collaboration with Bosch on Thursday

Photo by: DPPI