What’s new for 2026 at the Le Mans 24 Hours

For Dunlop, read Goodyear

Few vistas shout ‘Le Mans 24 Hours’ like the view back up the track to the Dunlop Bridge. It provided the backdrop to a thousand first-lap photos in days of old, when the circuit ran straight down to the start of the Esses prior to the insertion of a new set of sweeps in the Circuit de la Sarthe for 2002. The bridge hasn’t gone; just the name written large upon it has changed. It now bears the word ‘Goodyear’. 

The pedestrian crossing over the track on the exit of the chicane at the start of the lap has been rebranded for this year’s race, and with that more than 100 years of history has disappeared. There has been a Dunlop Bridge at Le Mans since the inaugural running of the 24 Hours back in 1923.

The first Dunlop Bridge was up near the Pontlieue hairpin in the days when the circuit, then measuring over 10 miles, stretched into the southern suburbs of Le Mans city. It moved to its current location in 1932, though that’s not to forget that for a short period there were two Dunlop Bridges. A second straddled the track near Tertre Rouge. 

The structure isn’t new; it has simply been refaced in deference to its new sponsor. It follows another twist in the complicated tale of the ownership of the Dunlop brand. Goodyear, the official tyre supplier for both the LMGT3 class and LMP2, previously had the rights to use its name in key markets, Europe and North America included. They were sold last year to the Japanese Sumitomo Rubber Industries company, which had owned Dunlop since the 1980s. 

And the name emblazoned above the track may have changed, but the corner below and the one that precedes it have not. “They are still the Dunlop Chicane and the Dunlop Curve,” says Automobile Club de l’Ouest president Pierre Fillon. “And they will always be the Dunlop Chicane and the Dunlop Curve.”

Fewest Porsches at Le Mans since 1951

The entire Porsche presence at this year's Le Mans captured in one shot

Photo by: Porsche

No Porsche prototypes on the grid at Le Mans isn’t exactly new. The arrival of the 963 LMDh in 2023 ended a four-year absence from the front of the grid for the Stuttgart marque following the end of the 919 Hybrid LMP1 programme on the car’s completion of its hat-trick in 2017. But only two Porsches in total on the grid, the pair of Manthey 911 GT3-Rs in LMGT3 this year, is a novelty. It’s not the way Porsche should be celebrating an unbroken run of 75 years competing in the French enduro. 

Last year, there were seven Porsches in the Le Mans field. That figure was made up of the trio of Penske factory 963s, Proton Competition’s privateer example and three Manthey cars in LMGT3: it gained an extra entry courtesy of a winning the class in the previous year’s European Le Mans Series. Go back to 2022 before the arrival of the LMDh, and there were 10 911 RSRs racing across GTE Pro and Am. Prior to Porsche’s return to the prototype ranks in 2014, seven 911 GT3-RSRs were on the entry across the two GTE divisions. The record for the most Porsches at Le Mans is 1971 when 33 were waved off at the start. 

You have to wind all the way back to 1951 to find a tally of Porsches lower than this year’s. That was the brand’s very first participation in the French enduro: a single factory-run 356 SL Coupe took part and won its class, while another failed to make it to the grid.

The colours of that car, which claimed up to 1100cc class honours, provides the inspiration for the anniversary livery on the two Manthey cars this week. Just a pair of Porsches at Le Mans is the new norm. Each manufacturer competing in LMGT3 gets two full-season WEC slots, though there is scope for an additional entry or two for the big race. So the world is going to have to wait for a Porsche prototype return for a significant increase in numbers. When that will be is anybody’s guess.

Garage 59 returns ‘home’

Garage 59’s WEC LMGT3 campaign is already off to a flying start

The identity of the team that has taken over McLaren’s LMGT3 entries for the World Endurance Championship and therefore Le Mans is somehow fitting. United Autosports, which ran the WEC 720S GT3 Evos in 2024 and 2025, has opted to step back from the programme to concentrate on its preparations for its partner’s arrival in Hypercar next year with a new LMDh. Into the breach has stepped an operation that tips its hat to an important bit of McLaren history. 

Garage 59 takes its name from the race number of the Kokusai Kaihatsu entry that took a famous out-of-the-box victory for the Gordon Murray-designed McLaren F1 GTR at Le Mans in 1995. The team started out as effectively the works squad of the McLaren GT operation that developed the British manufacturer’s MP4/12C and 650S for GT3 racing in the 2010s. It was established for the 2016 season, winning the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup at the first time of asking with a roster of drivers including current NASCAR Cup star Shane van Gisbergen.

In a bizarre twist, Garage 59 ended up fielding Aston Martins for three seasons after McLaren took its GT3 programme in-house, before returning to the McLaren fold to run the 720S in 2022. It missed out on the WEC gig for 2024 – it was one of three teams in the running – but got the nod this time around. It means Garage 59 is racing at Le Mans for the first time. Sort of. It actually partnered with Optimum Motorsport to field a Ferrari 488 GTE in GTE Am at Le Mans in 2022. 

Garage 59 arrives at Le Mans on the back of a flying start to its first WEC campaign. It won second time out at Spa in April with the GT3 Evo shared by Marvin Kirchhofer, Tom Fleming and Antares Au. They would have won at April’s series opener at Imola, too, but for a heart-breaking late alternator problem. 

A class win for Garage 59 wouldn’t actually be the first for McLaren at Le Mans since 1995. It’s largely forgotten that the second place overall for the Gulf-liveried long-tail F1 GTR in 1997 represented a victory in GT1.  

Museum gets a makeover

The rebranded and revamped M24 Motorsport Museum now extends its focus beyond the French enduro

The Le Mans museum has undergone a major makeover for this year. Still located at the main gate of the circuit, it has been extended and rebranded in a partnership between Le Mans organiser the Automobile Club de l’Ouest and watchmaker Richard Mille.

The Frenchman is also president of the FIA Sports Car Commission and an avid car collector. Some of his 100-plus machines will form part of a new exhibition that is officially known as the M24 Motorsport Museum. 

The name reflects a widening of the scope of the museum. The focus is no longer on Le Mans and sportscar racing; there will be sections devoted to other motorsport disciplines, Formula 1, rallying and Indycar included.

Lewis Hamilton has been announced as a patron and his 2018 Formula 1 title-winning Mercedes W09 is on display. There’s also a Ferrari F2002 driven by Michael Schumacher over the course of his successful campaign that season. 

In terms of sportscars, there no fewer than eight original Le Mans-winning cars starting with the Bentley 3-Litre that took victory at the 24 Hours in 1924. Don’t be fooled by the Mazda 787B, however. It’s a lookalike show car rather than the chassis that triumphed in 1991.

Dumas and his team

48-year-old Dumas is back with his own team for his 24th Le Mans start

Photo by: Sylvain Thomas / AFP via Getty Images

One of the smattering of teams racing at Le Mans for the first time this year might not sound very catchy, but there’s a big name behind it. RD Limited, which fields an LMP2 ORECA-Gibson 07, is headed by two-time Le Mans winner Romain Dumas. 

The operation is far from new. It was established as a vehicle for the extra-curricular rallying exploits of Dumas when he was a kingpin of the Porsche factory line-up, and also masterminded Volkswagen’s record-breaking assault on the Pikes Peak hillclimb in Colorado with the all-electric I.D R prototype in 2018. It’s done the Dakar Rally, too.

RD took the plunge into sportscar racing in the Asian Le Mans Series in 2024-25, winning a race with its ORECA and then notching up a couple of podiums in the same series last winter. Now it’s racing at Le Mans as part of the 19-strong P2 field – the biggest since 2023 when the class was still part of the full WEC – with a line-up comprising Tristan Vautier, Fred Poordad and Dumas himself. The Frenchman, 48, is back at Le Mans after a two-year absence for his 24th start in the big race. That puts him fifth in the all-time participation list alongside Jan Lammers, Emmanuel Collard and Francois Migault. 

There’s still a way to go for him to match the 33 of Henri Pescarolo, who was an inspiration for Dumas in his formative years. When Dumas was part of Elf’s La Filiere young driver scheme in the late 1990s, he used to pop into its facility at Le Mans and look at the Courage-Porsche LMP that Pescarolo used to drive in the oil giant’s colours with a young driver from the programme. The seed of an idea to run a car himself at Le Mans was sown back then.  

Dumas isn’t the only big name competing in P2 at Le Mans this year. Porsche factory driver Kevin Estre, WEC Hypercar champion in 2024, has found himself a drive with the French TDS Racing, while Jack Doohan is dovetailing his F1 reserve duties at Haas with a maiden sportscar campaign driving for the British Nielsen Racing team in the European Le Mans Series encompassing Le Mans. His F1 role precluded his attendance at scrutineering at Le Mans last week, so his place in the traditional team photograph was taken by a cardboard cut-out. 

More drivers in Hyperpole

Last year’s pole-winner Alex Lynn was able to get back in the car for the later session – now that wouldn’t be possible

Photo by: Jakob Ebrey / LAT Images via Getty Images

The multi-round Hyperpole qualifying format brought in for Le Mans in 2020 has undergone another tweak for this season. A third round of qualifying was introduced last year, but now there are new limitations on who can drive when. 

Previously, a driver taking part in the opening 30-minute session on Wednesday evening last year could drive in one of the Hyperpole 1 or Hyperpole 2 sessions on Thursday. Pole winner Alex Lynn, for example, topped the times on the first day in his Jota Cadillac V-Series.R LMDh before returning to the cockpit, after Will Stevens took a turn in H1, to head up a Caddy 1-2 when it really mattered. 

Now he or she won’t be able to do so. If a car progresses all the way to the final H2 shootout lasting 10 minutes, each of the three drivers will have taken part in qualifying. The only stipulation on who is nominated to drive in each of the sessions is in LMGT3: the mandatory bronze-rated driver must, like last year, take the wheel on Wednesday.

BMW's retro livery

BMW's Gulf Oil inspired retro livery will be one to look out for this week

Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt

BMW has gone retro in the World Endurance Championship this year. The #69 WRT-run LMGT3 class M4 GT3 EVO shared by Dan Harper, Parker Thompson and Anthony McIntosh is racing in a different livery every time out, each one inspired by the back catalogue of striking designs to feature on the Munich marque’s sportscar and touring car machinery down the years. This time the car pays tribute to the colour scheme of the GTC Competition team’s trio of BMW-engined McLaren F1 GTRs that raced at Le Mans in 1997 in the blue and orange of Gulf Oil. The best of them shared by Jean-Marc Gounon, Pierre Henri-Raphanel and Anders Olofsson finished second overall that year, but it is largely forgotten that it also took class honours in GT1. So it could be a good omen. 

This article is one of many in the monthly Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the July 2026 issue and subscribe today. 

It will take some time getting used to this view of the bridge

Photo by: Porsche