It’s June and since 1923 brits have been making an annual pilgrimage to a small town in the Loire region of France called Le Mans, where the famous 24hrs race takes place.

There have been some fallow periods, most recently the period from 2019 to 2021 when (apart from covid) the races were dominated by one marque, Toyota. Fortunately during this period the GT category provided close racing throughout the race.

Last year, we had the second year of Hypercars, a type of hybrid car with either front or rear axle hybrid systems. The class included five manufacturers; Ferrari; Porsche; Cadillac; Peugeot; and, Toyota. Ferrari ended a fifty year gap by taking the win from Toyota. There were slightly different approaches to the designs, Peugeot decided to build a car minus a rear wing, a move which they have reversed this year.

The costs for running these cars is said to be 80% of the costs for the previous top tier so we can hope for more manufacturers to enter the fray. Aston Martin is preparing its Valkyrie for 2025, and hopefully Ford will enter its GT in 2026, to celebrate 60 years since that famous win in 1966.

Not that the previous years have been boring, far from it; the hybrids from 2012 to 2016 were spectacular, and of course the Group C years from 1982 to 1994, when Porsche chassis played a significant role in populating the grids with privateers and works teams. Who can forget the 1988 XJR-9LM that finally saw off the Porsche dominance, or the noise from the Mazda 787B in 1991?

But back to the present. The top class will boast entries from Alpine, BMW, Cadillac, Ferrari, Isotta Fraschini, Lamborghini, Peugeot, Porsche and Toyota and with customer entries on top that means there will be 23 cars in the class. This year there will be an LMP2 class for this race only, boasting 16 entries including Proton and United Autosports (to name but two). This class has been suspended for the WEC as a whole due to the volume of entries in the top class.

The LMGTE Class is now LMGT3, but the usual suspects; Aston Martin, BMW, Corvette, Ferrari, Ford, Lamborghini, Lexus, McLaren and Porsche are all in there. The all female team “Iron Dames” will be battling it out in their Lamborghini. They are there on merit proving that if you have talent, your gender is immaterial. I’m looking forward to seeing how the Ford Mustang performs in this class.

Due to various commitments I’ve only been able to attend since 2019 so I’m hoping for an epic race this year. There are quite a few of us from the discussion forum TenTenths.com who meet for a group lunch at around 12 mid day. Then suitably refreshed we all disperse to various parts of the circuit.

The race starts at 16:00 (CET) on Saturday 15th June, and I will be in my seat in the ACO stand to see the cars set off from the rolling start. As ever Radio Le Mans will be calling the race on my head set and with them in my ears, my next 24hrs looks somewhat like a walking tour of the circuit (there are courtesy buses). The plan is to see the cars at Arnage in the dusk, then to see the sunrise from Tetre Rouge. In between, trips to various refreshment areas will be necessary. Since I’m located at Porsche Curves, I plan to watch the final hour from there.

Further information can be found at: https://www.24h-lemans.com