Why the 2026 Le Mans 24 Hours looks like the hardest race to call

Has the Le Mans 24 Hours ever been more wide open? It’s probably too early to say that for sure, not before the cars take to the Circuit de la Sarthe on the Test Day on Sunday. But on what is admittedly limited evidence from the World Endurance Championship so far this season, there’s good reason to hope for a close one.

Making predictions isn’t easy, not least because there are so many unknowns going into the 94th running of the French enduro on 13-14 June. 

A roller coaster of a race at Spa in early May pointed to a majority of the eight manufacturers represented in Hypercar being in the mix at Le Mans. Four of them were genuine contenders for victory. BMW claimed a maiden overall world championship sportscars win in the current iteration of the WEC with its M Hybrid V8 LMDh, and Ferrari ended up being its closest challenger, taking third with the best of its 499P Le Mans Hypercars.

Cadillac and Alpine looked well placed to take the win at different stages of the six hours, though left more or less empty handed. Cadillac collected a couple of points for ninth with the best of its V-Series.R LMDhs, while the two Alpine A424 LMDhs ended up non-scoring in 11th and 12th.

Toyota, winner first time out at Imola in April with its new-look and renamed TR010 Hybrid LMH, looked good for a podium for the middle four hours of the race before tactically getting it wrong. Aston Martin’s Valkyrie LMH recorded its best WEC finish to date with fourth place. Peugeot, meanwhile, claimed a maiden pole position with the 9X8 LMH, and even series newcomer Genesis made it into the points in eighth place with its GMR-001 LMDh. 

Imola painted a different picture, however. Ferrari and Toyota had an edge over the rest, the latter ending up as the winner not because its TR010 was faster than the 499P, but because it was strategically superior on the day.

BMW scored something of a surprise maiden overall win at Spa in May

Photo by: Jakob Ebrey / LAT Images via Getty Images

The problem in attempting to foretell what is going to happen at Le Mans, always a formidable task, is compounded by the fact that there have been just two races on which to base predictions for the one that really matters on the Circuit de la Sarthe.

The scheduled curtain-raiser in Qatar was postponed from the end of March until October as a result of the geopolitical situation in the Middle East. There should have been 22 hours of racing so far this season on which to judge the Hypercar field, but instead there have just been 12. The Qatar 1812Km, remember, is a 10-hour race to all intents and purposes. The race finished five minutes short of the cut-off in 2024 and then went the full duration last year. 

That means there has also been less racing for the organisers to work out the Balance of Performance, the means by which the playing field is levelled in Hypercar. That is significant not only because four of the Hypercars have undergone performance upgrades under the evo joker rules designed to keep a cap on development, but because all the existing cars have been reworked to a greater or lesser extent. 

There should have been 22 hours of racing so far this season on which to judge the Hypercar field, but instead there have just been 12

Toyota’s LMH, as well as the BMW, the Cadillac V-Series.R and Alpine LMDhs, have all undergone aero upgrades for 2026. But all seven manufacturers racing in the WEC last year have had to rehomologate their LMH and LMDh cars. They went back in the wind tunnel because the Sauber Technologies facility in which WEC machinery was measured became unavailable as a result of the Formula 1 team’s purchase by Audi.

That means the FIA and the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, which jointly administer the WEC, have swapped to the Windshear tunnel used by IMSA. All cars competing in the IMSA SportsCar Championship’s GTP class, as well as LMDh machinery racing in the WEC only, previously went through the homologation process in North Carolina. The entire WEC grid has now been sent to Windshear whether upgraded or not. 

Ferrari, for example, didn’t invoke a joker, or more likely wasn’t allowed to as the winning manufacturer last year at both Le Mans and the WEC, yet the 499P’s aerodynamics have been tweaked as a result of the change of wind tunnel. The performance window laying out maximum downforce and minimum drag in which all cars must sit has been modified.

Alpine was a victory contender in Belgium but came away with nothing to show for it

Photo by: Paul Foster

This reflects the change in the tunnel used and has, according to some manufacturers, been subtly shifted downwards. To meet the new requirements, the aero add-ons on the Ferrari have been changed. It’s all about “flicks, dive planes, fences in the diffuser, Gurney flaps and things like that”, says Ferdinando Cannizzo, technical boss of Ferrari’s endurance racing programmes, of the changes to the 499P. It adds up to a car that, he insists, is “inherently slightly slower”. 

The FIA and ACO also stressed that they wanted to come up with what they have described as “more robust homologation parameters” to aid the BoP process. On the evidence of Spa, though less so on what was seen at Imola, a genuine step has been taken. And a needed one. The BoP failed to create the desired close racing in 2025, not at Le Mans or over the rest of the WEC campaign. 

The BoP will be another unknown for the wider world come Le Mans. The FIA and the ACO have decided to stop publishing the relevant figures, a table of power and weight for each race, but exactly how the BoP is calculated for Le Mans also hasn’t been revealed to the manufacturers.

The 24 Hours traditionally had a standalone BoP, separate in the way it is calculated to that of the rest of the series, courtesy of the unique characteristics of the 8.47-mile track. Whether that is the case this year or whether the so-called “rolling BoP” employed for the regular races is in operation wasn’t divulged. The organisers opted to keep its methodology for Le Mans a secret so no one could play the system.  

Yet there are further unknowns as the WEC circus arrives at Le Mans. A new range of slick tyres has been introduced by Michelin, the sole supplier in Hypercar, made from 50% sustainable materials. As well as enhancing its ecological credentials, Michelin has subtly changed the way the tyres perform. One of the aims was to improve warm-up, a key issue since tyre warmers were banned in the WEC at the start of 2023 (the decision was reversed for Le Mans only that year). A second target was to produce a more durable tyre.

The manufacturers will have to learn how the tyres behave on what is a track like no other, at a time when their experience with them is limited. Manufacturers competing in the WEC only were given just one set on which to test prior to the start of the year. Those also racing in IMSA have a theoretical advantage: they have had more exposure to the tyres, not least in competing over 36 hours at Daytona and Sebring at the beginning of the North American campaign. 

The Aston Martin Valkyrie hit new heights, one spot off the podium at Spa

Photo by: Jakob Ebrey / LAT Images via Getty Images

“The new tyres do not behave exactly like before,” says David Floury, Toyota Racing technical director. “It’s not a revolution, but there are some differences. We need to understand them. The last range was used from 2023, so we had a lot of experience. We have to rebuild this experience.” 

Toyota won at Imola because it could triple-stint its tyres, previously not a regular occurrence in a six-hour WEC event. That raises the prospect of a return of quadruples at a track like Le Mans where tyre wear is not at a premium. They were de rigueur in LMP1 days before triples became the norm in the Hypercar era courtesy of heavier cars with less downforce. No one knows for sure if quadruples are on the cards.

“There is no place like Le Mans, so even with trends we will have seen in the opening WEC races we are not going to know until we get there,” says Tomoki ‘Taka’ Takahashi, technical director of the Jota Cadillac team. Floury will only say that quads are “a possibility”, though he admits that the lack of running on the tyres “makes it difficult to predict”. 

“There is no place like Le Mans, so even with trends we will have seen in the opening WEC races we are not going to know until we get there” Tomoki Takahashi

The operating window of each of the three different compounds – soft, medium and hard – in the new tyre range has also been extended. Essentially there will be a bigger overlap in the temperature conditions in which they optimally work. Michelin views this as a way of increasing strategic variation during the races.

It is more likely to have the opposite effect, reckon Floury and Takahashi. “Now it is less of a challenge to select the right specification, so it is a levelling down,” says Floury. “We will probably see that you can make less of a difference in your tyre strategy than in the past.” Takahashi has a similar opinion: “It is probably going to mean you don’t have to be perfect, that you don’t have to be bang on with your choice because you’ve got a wider window.”

A fourth new tyre could be brought into play at Le Mans, which could further mix things up. There is no wet in the new range as yet: Michelin wants to use up its existing stock, as throwing away tyres isn’t ecologically sound. Because there is no intermediate, the 2023-spec wet is designed to be able to run on a drying track.

In contrast to Spa, Ferrari and Toyota had an edge at the new opening round at Imola

Photo by: FIA WEC / DPPI

Nowhere were the pluses and minuses of this tyre more apparent than at the Austin WEC round last September. The struggles of the drivers in standing water were plain to see. Yet come the end of the race when a dry line had emerged, the leading contenders all stayed on wets. In LMGT3, for which Goodyear supplies the rubber, all the cars had swapped to slicks by the time the race ended. 

From this year, Michelin can apply for what it is calling a “derogation” to cut extra grooves in the existing wet if it believes track conditions demand. One set of such tyres was given to each manufacturer when it rained during the pre-season prologue test at Imola in the week ahead of the race, though most chose not to run them given that there was little in the way of standing water. The teams will have a decision to make on whether to head into uncharted territory if it rains hard enough for the tyre to be made available. 

It’s difficult to identify any trends from the opening two rounds of the WEC this year. In LMP1 days a clear picture was generally emerging as the cars converged on Le Mans, and even in the first three seasons in the current so-called golden era of sportscar racing, the first races offered some insight into how things were going to play out on the Circuit de la Sarthe. Not so this year. 

Floury shrugs when asked where Toyota is going to be in the pecking order as it goes in search of a sixth Le Mans victory. “I don’t know what to expect,” he says. “We will find out when we are at Le Mans.”

Jota Cadillac driver Sebastien Bourdais suggests the world might have to wait even longer. “I don’t think we are going to know much until the flag drops,” he reckons. “All you can do is focus on yourself and do the best job you can. I feel our preparation level is very high; it looks pretty good as far as optimising ourselves, but how we are going to stack up against the opposition, no one knows.”

The race at Spa, as the circuit closest in its characteristics to Le Mans, used to offer a clear pointer to what might happen in France in the middle of June. Think back to the days when manufacturers were allowed to run different aero kits and would give their Le Mans-spec bodywork a run in Belgium.

But perhaps Spa this year also offers a valid snapshot of what is to come. That has to be the hope.

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. 

Le Mans being a track like no other makes it much more of a bookie’s head-scratcher

Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt