Well, here it is. For the 93rd time, the immortal Circuit De La Sarthe will play host to the greatest race in the world. I’ve been twiddling my thumbs watching as much le mans content as I can all day, and now it is finally here. There’s a different feeling over this one, too. Mercedes and Aston Martin are back, the field is only growing and crucially it looks to be a dry race all the way through. But there’s an entire day to go, so who will Le Mans choose to be its victor in 2025? There’s only one way to find out…

As the hour opened Cadillac seemed almost out of it, with just one car in the top ten and two off the lead lap. And Porsche weren’t faring much better either, with just the #6 left in realistic contention to challenge the Ferrari trio that still ran metronomically through the night. But even they weren’t perfect. On a scheduled pit stop the #51 inexplicably made the simplest of errors: it took the wrong tyres. Thus, the car lost the largest amount of time it had all race as a lap later it re-entered the pits to change onto the correct compound, but it exited in 7th place overall as Kevin Estre’s #6 went into the lead after passing its rival of the #83 in the pits. The race looks to be transforming into a battle between those two cars, and a battle primarily on fuel strategy. The cars now ran with about a 40 percent difference in virtual energy being carried at any one time, and if that was to be the deciding factor we’d have to wait a long while before the optimal strategy revealed itself.

Cadillac’s day meanwhile got significantly worse, as the #311 Whelen car that had been running in the top 10 a few hours ago entered the pits and then the garage with power steering issues, losing valuable time. Luckily for them it was soon fixed but not before they were realistically out of contention bar a miracle, the car reportedly fixed with zip ties and duct tape. Now if you ask me, that’s the proper Le Mans spirit. Teams just finding their own way to deal with their own problems. The only problem for the #311 crew was that after replacing a torque sensor, they were sitting dead last after an excruciating eighteen minute pit stop. The #51 Ferrari was then put under the microscope for a potential yellow flag infringement, along with the #33 Corvette of Johnny Edgar. And it would too be penalised with a five second stop and go for the car in overall contention, another slight hiccup for the Scuderia, with the #51 subseqeuntly being investigated for pit lane speeding as many others had been. Meanwhile in LMGT3 Lexus had moved up the order and now were looking to mount a serious challenge on the #92 and #46, with both of their cars now third and fourth and closing in all the time.

Ferrari meanwhile would have yet another penalty for the #51 to serve, given an heftier 20 second stop and go penalty just after dealing with a 5 second penalty of a similar nature. It was Ferrari’s first real mistake so far, and their car was down in eighth on pace – the lowest it had been in hours – leaving a greater opportunity for the #6 Porsche and its sister Ferraris of the #50 and #83. In total, the #51 Ferrari had 25 seconds of penalties to serve across its next two stops. When it finally emerged, it was running ninth and a long way back from the leaders.

All this was happening as the #4 Porsche and #15 BMW were starting to join the fray with just over fourteen hours left in the race. JOTA meanwhile were beginning to make some ground back as well, both their cars running 10th and 11th, as Toyota’s #7 moved up to 12th overall. Aston Martin meanwhile were still running in 18th and 19th but without any issues whatsoever in what was turning out to be a great race so far for the team. They’re not looking for overall victory here, in fact I’d argue finishing their first 24 Hour race with both cars would be a fantastic result for a team and car that have only been competing since March.

A slight moment was caught in LMP2, as the Iron-Lynx #9 went straight on at the Dunlop chicane through the gravel, thankfully avoiding contact with any other cars but unnecessarily losing time. Then, more strife for Cadillac as the #101 Wayne Taylor car was handed a further 5 second stop and go penalty as the LMGT3 lead battle was cut down to under a second between the #21 of Alessio Rovera and the #46 BMW of Amad Al Harthy. At one point the #46 had opened up a minute long lead, but now the battle was brought back to a car’s length. Rovera was quick, and soon took the lead for the AF Corse Ferrari and ended BMW’s hour’s long stranglehold on this year’s race. Meanwhile the #22 United Autosports LMP2 that’s had many moments during this race pitted to fix a small issue, costing them the better part of two laps and placing them fourth from bottom in the class. And so too did the #50 Ferrari, inexplicably pitting halfway through its stint for no obvious reason.

The #101 Cadillac received another 5 second stop and go penalty for speeding in the pit lane, as the unpenalised #50 came under investigation for moving off track and gaining an advantage, as the #83 kept on chugging along and was now back in the lead. Kevin Estre finally left the cockpit of the #6 after a mega multi-hour stint that saw him solidify the car as a contender and set up teammate Laurens Vanthoor for the early morning running. The #51 though was struggling to regain that crucial lost time, still running ninth after its next pit stop as the BMW #15 and Toyota #8 lined up to take advantage. But up ahead the #83 now had a one minute lead with Robert Kubica pressing on and opening it up. It and the #6 seemed to be the favourites going into the second half of the race.

And another car that found itself in a similar position was the #46 WRT BMW of Kelvin Van Der Linde, until he beached his M4 LMGT3 after having led much of the race and at one point opened up a one minute lead on the competition was now stuck and facing a second consecutive retirement from the lead. Either way it was dropping through the field like a stone and was likely out of contention in a heart wrenching moment for the crew who found themselves in exactly the same situation as last year. A slow zone was called out while the BMW was recovered from the Porsche Curves gravel trap. Kelvin was ok, but the #46 crew’s race was under a dire threat. The suspicion was the power steering had failed on the corner entry and that had led Van Der Linde straight on, now a lap down on the field. It meant that the lead battle mirrored that in Hypercar: Porsche V Ferrari. AF Corse’s #21 V Manthey’s #92 as the BMW was wheeled into the garage, losing more time than originally anticipated.

All the while, the #4 IMSA Porsche completed its drive through the field and was now back into contention in 4th overall with Nick Tandy piloting the car as a Full Course Yellow was brought out for debris clearup. When it was cleared BMW’s #46 crew re-emerged, now three laps down and with an absolute mountain to climb if they wanted to have any chance at winning the class. After a brief attempt at returning to the race, the worst was confirmed. For the second year in a row, the #46 BMW had retired during the night while fighting for the lead. Up in Hypercar the #8 Toyota was up to fourth and continuing its challenge on the Ferraris while BMW ran 6th and 7th, #15 ahead of #20, before the #50 had a 5 second stop and go penalty. Ferrari it seemed couldn’t stop getting themselves completely unnecessary penalties that were handing the advantage to Toyota, Porsche and BMW. They’d lost their strangelhold by now with both the factory cars having continuously gained small penalties, meaning their strongest chance of victory now surely lay with the #83.

LMP2 had been running quietly, until the #24 Nielsen Racing had a heavy crash into the barriers after Cem Bolukbasi went off at Tetre rouge, and finally after over eleven hours of racing the first real intervention of the race came out, throwing the strategy game wide open and the lead battle into a whole new game. This then was a massive moment for the overall lead, as immediately the #6 Porsche dived into the pits ahead of the #83 which replaced the front bodywork. Immediately everyone joined the race leaders from all classes, the nervous wait to see where different cars would emerge in their safety car trains. The #25 Algarve Pro Racing was in for more than a free change of tyres and fuel, bodywork damage needed to be replaced on the car, the team using the opportunity to repair the damage sustained in the late afternoon. But Nielsen’s day was done.

And so with merging and wave-by procedure completed, the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans was able to start for the second time, with Matt Campbell’s #6 Porsche leading away the #8 Toyota of Riyo Hirakawa and the #83 Ferrari of Ye Yifei. BMW were fifth and Cadillac sixth, as the race was closed up not just in terms of cars with a chance of contention but also the manufacturers. And Vanthoor set off immediately as the #20 pitted from sixth on the road. The field held station throughout the first lap.

So as we enter the second half of the 93rd running of this majestic race, it’s all been brought back into play thanks to a mid-race safety car. Porsche lead but Toyota, Ferrari, Cadillac and BMW all have horses in this race now, whilst LMP2 is still held by VDS Panis Racing’s #48 ahead of the Iron Lynx #9 and Inter Europol’s #43 with IDEC Sport’s cars rounding out the top 5. With both WRT LMGT3’s now either out or in the pits – the #31 joined the #20 in the pits on the restart – LMGT3 is now led by Manthey’s #92 ahead of TF Sport’s #81 Corvette and the #78 Akkodis ASP Lexus and AF Corse’s #21.

So, we’re back racing and it’s all to play for as we continue into Sunday morning, but who will have the advantage as the sun rises? There’s only one way to find out…

thumbnail credit – Lukas Raich, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons