The 91st 24 Hours of Le Mans (), also known as the Centenary 24 Hours of Le Mans (), was an automobile endurance race for teams of three drivers racing Le Mans Hypercars (LMH), Le Mans Prototype (LMP) and Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance (LMGTE) cars held from 10 to 11 June 2023 at the Circuit de la Sarthe, near Le Mans, France. Held in front of 325,000 spectators, it was the 91st running of the Automobile Club de l'Ouest's 24-hour race—100 years after the first—and marked the fourth round of the 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC). There was a test day on 4 June, a week before the event.
A Ferrari 499P shared by Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen of Ferrari AF Corse started from pole position after Fuoco set the overall fastest lap in the Le Mans Hypercar class in the Hyperpole session. Their teammates James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi in the second AF Corse Ferrari won overall after leading the final 55 laps. It was the first overall Le Mans victory for Calado, Giovinazzi and Pier Guidi, as well as Ferrari's tenth and its first since . Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryō Hirakawa finished second in a Toyota GR010 Hybrid after battling the eventual winners in the second half of the race. Third overall was taken by Cadillac Racing's Cadillac V-Series.R LMDh car, driven by Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn and Richard Westbrook.
Albert Costa, Fabio Scherer and Jakub Śmiechowski of Inter Europol Competition led the last 112 laps of the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class in an Oreca 07-Gibson car to claim their maiden WEC class victory. Team WRT's Rui Andrade, Louis Delétraz and Robert Kubica finished second by 21.015 seconds, while René Binder, Neel Jani and Nico Pino of Duqueine Team took third. Corvette Racing's Nicky Catsburg, Ben Keating and Nicolás Varrone in a Chevrolet Corvette C8.R came from two laps down, after a second-hour pit stop to replace a failed damper, to win the final Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Am (LMGTE Am) and GTE race, one lap ahead of ORT by TF's Aston Martin Vantage AMR shared by Ahmad Al Harthy, Michael Dinan and Charlie Eastwood.
Calado, Giovinazzi and Pier Guidi's victory moved them from fifth to second in the Hypercar Drivers' Championship, 25 points behind leaders Buemi, Hartley and Hirakawa. Andrande, Delétraz and Kubica remained the leaders in the competition for the FIA Endurance Trophy for LMP2 Drivers; category winners Costa, Scherer and Śmiechowski moved from sixth to second. Catsburg, Keating and Varrone extended their Endurance Trophy for LMGTE Am Teams lead over Al Harthy, Dinan and Eastwood. Toyota, the 41 Team WRT and No. 33 Corvette Racing teams left Le Mans as the respective Hypercar World Endurance Championship, Endurance Trophy for LMP2 Teams and Endurance Trophy for LMGTE Am Teams leaders with three races left in the season.
Background
The 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans, held at the Circuit de la Sarthe near Le Mans, France between 10 and 11 June, was the 91st running of the race, the 100th anniversary of its first edition in and the fourth round of the 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship.
Before the event, Toyota drivers Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryō Hirakawa led the Hypercar Drivers' Championship with 71 points, five ahead of their teammates Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López. Ferrari AF Corse's Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen were third, with Cadillac Racing's Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn and Richard Westbrook fourth.
In the FIA Endurance Trophy for LMP2 Drivers, Phil Hanson and Frederick Lubin of United Autosports led Team WRT's Rui Andrade, Louis Delétraz and Robert Kubica by an eight-point advantage while Corvette Racing's Nicky Catsburg, Ben Keating and Nicolás Varrone led the Endurance Trophy for LMGTE Am Teams from Richard Mille AF Corse's Luis Pérez Companc, Alessio Rovera and Lilou Wadoux by 39 points.
Toyota led Ferrari by 33 points in the Hypercar World Endurance Championship, while the 22 United Autosports squad led the No. 41 Team WRT team in the Endurance Trophy for LMP2 Teams by eight points and the No. 33 Corvette Racing team led the No. 83 Richard Mille AF Corse squad in the Endurance Trophy for LMGTE Am Teams with an 39-point advantage.
Regulation changes Following a lengthy analysis of the safety car's use by the race organiser, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO), dating back to the event, in which Porsche won the Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Professional class (LMGTE Pro) by a large margin, a new procedure was implemented, with the goal of reducing the safety car's impact on the race. Three safety cars would be deployed, but two of them would be removed, allowing every car to circulate behind the remaining safety car. This would allow any lapped vehicles to pass the sole remaining safety car and go around the circuit until they reached the end of the queue. The field would then be sorted from fastest to slowest car categories, and racing would resume. This procedure would not be used in the race's final hour. Cars could still make pit stops during safety car periods until the pit lane exit was closed by the single safety car system. The system was tested during test day a week before the race.
The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and the ACO suspended a ban on tyre warmers (designed to provide additional grip to tyres at the start of a stint) to reduce the championship's environmental impact only for the race at Le Mans across all car categories. Concerns made by drivers at the preceding 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps race weekend, where many cars slid off the track on cold tyres and crashed in changing conditions, forced the modification. LMGTE Pro was dropped from the race in 2023, leaving only the Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Amateur (LMGTE Am) class as the only category for GT cars.
Entries Entry to the race was open from 8 December 2022 to 21 February 2023. The ACO Selection Committee granted 62 invitations and entries were divided between the Le Mans Hypercar (Hypercar), Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) and LMGTE Am categories.
Automatic entries Teams that won championships in the European Le Mans Series (ELMS), Asian Le Mans Series (ALMS) and Michelin Le Mans Cup (MLMC) earned automatic entry invitations. Second-place finishers in the 2022 ELMS LMP2 and LMGTE championships also received an automatic invitation. All current WEC full-season entries were automatically invited. The ACO selected three IMSA SportsCar Championship (WTSC) teams as automatic enties, regardless of performance or category. Teams that earned automatic LMP2 entries were permitted to change their cars from the previous year. ELMS LMGTE and ALMS GT teams which earned automatic entries could only enter in LMGTE Am. The 2022 European and 2023 Asian LMP3 (Le Mans Prototype 3) champions had to enter a LMP2 car, while the 2022 MLMC Group GT3 (GT3) champion was restricted to LMGTE Am.
The ACO announced the full list of automatic entries on 20 February 2023. Prema Racing chose to forego their automatic invitation as winners of the 2022 ELMS LMP2 category as it wanted to field their two full-time WEC cars in the race.
+Automatic entries for the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans Reason invited Hypercar LMP2 LMGTE Am 1st in the European Le Mans Series (LMP2 and LMGTE) Prema Racing Proton Competition 2nd in the European Le Mans Series (LMP2 and LMGTE) Panis Racing Kessel Racing 1st in the European Le Mans Series (LMP3) Cool Racing 3rd in the European Le Mans Series (LMGTE) Iron Lynx IMSA SportsCar Championship at-large entries Action Express Racing John Farano Ryan Hardwick 1st in the Asian Le Mans Series (LMP2 and GT) DKR Engineering Walkenhorst Motorsport 1st in the Asian Le Mans Series (LMP3) Graff Racing 1st in the Michelin Le Mans Cup (GT3) GMB Motorsport Sources:
Entry list and reserves
The ACO announced the full 62 car entry list on the afternoon of 27 February. In addition to the 37 guaranteed WEC entries, there were 15 ELMS entries, four WTSC entries, four ALMS entries, and two one-off Le Mans entries. There were 40 cars in the two Prototype classes, 21 in the LMGTE Am class, and one innovative entry. In addition to the 62 entries invited, ten (three from LMGTE Am and seven from LMP2) were placed on a reserve list to replace withdrawn or unaccepted invitations. Reserve entries were ordered, with the first one replacing the first withdrawal from the race, regardless of class. Entries were selected for their sporting quality, technical, fan, media and public interest and commitment, loyalty to other ACO-administered series and entrant's performance.
Heart of Racing withdrew their 27 LMGTE Am Aston Martin Vantage AMR, which was the tenth and final entry on the reserve list, after the entry list was published. The ACO published a revised entry list on 5 May 2023. It confirmed the withdrawal of Heart of Racing's entry as well as Risi Competizione's No. 82 LMGTE Am Ferrari 488 GTE EVO, reducing the reserve list to eight entries with no other changes to the teams' list.
Garage 56
The Garage 56 concept to test new automotive technologies at Le Mans returned after a two-year absence. It was announced at a press conference at Sebring International Raceway in March 2022 that a modified Next Gen Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 car fielded by Hendrick Motorsports would compete in the race, marking NASCAR's 75th anniversary and the first time NASCAR had a presence at Le Mans since , when a Dodge Charger and Ford Torino competed in the Grand International category.
The Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 received numerous aerodynamic updates, carbon brake discs, functional front and rear headlights, and a larger fuel cell, which reduced its weight by compared to the NASCAR Cup Series model. Mike Rockenfeller, the 2010 overall Le Mans co-winner, joined 2009 Formula One World Champion Jenson Button and seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson as its drivers. Former crew chief Chad Knaus was project manager, and the car had the No. 24 in commemoration of driver Jeff Gordon.
Pre-race balance of performance changes The ACO and FIA changed the balance of performance four days before the test day to try to achieve parity in all categories since the Le Mans Hypercar performance was "greater than initially anticipated" and they did not have the manufacturers' consent prior to implement the changes. Four Hypercars received weight increases. The Toyota GR010 Hybrid, Ferrari 499P, Porsche 963 and the Cadillac V-Series.R were made , , and heavier, respectively. The Glickenhaus SCG 007 LMH, Peugeot 9X8 and Vanwall Vandervell 680-Gibson cars received no performance changes. Toyota, Ferrari, and Cadillac had their energy per stints increased to compensate for the additional ballast on their vehicles. In LMGTE Am, every car model in the Porsche 911 RSR-19, Chevrolet Corvette C8.R, Ferrari 488 GTE EVO, and Aston Martin Vantage AMR received more ballast to affect their handling. Similarly, Corvette's performance was improved by permitting a wider air intake on its engine, while Ferrari and Aston Martin's boost pressures were increased for improved performance.
Testing One week before the race, on 4 June, all entrants were obliged to participate in eight hours of driving divided into two sessions. Some drivers missed part or all of testing because they were competing in the Formula E double-header in Jakarta, the GT World Challenge Europe round at Circuit Paul Ricard or the IndyCar Series event in Detroit. Reserve drivers included Matt Campbell (Porsche Penske Motorsport; he did not participate in testing); Alexandre Cougnaud (Graff); Kazuki Nakajima (Toyota; he filled in for Buemi, who was in Jakarta); and Stoffel Vandoorne (Peugeot Sport; also in Jakarta).