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…

On the restart there was immediate drama as Filipe Albuqerque went behind the barrier with an engine failure in the #101 Wayne Taylor Cadillac as Raffaele Marciello made his way up to fifth for BMW in the #15. The order overall then was the #6 Porsche, ahead of the #8 Toyota and the #83 Ferrari before the #4 Porsche was due a pit stop in a couple of laps time and heavily out of sequence. It meant Marciello stood to move up to fourth and in real contention, ahead of both factory Ferraris. In all the action the JOTA Cadillacs now ran 8th and 10th with the delayed #5 Porsche splitting the factory cars. So after a torrid race the #101 was done, and so it seemed was WRT’s second LMGT3, the #31 car was now in the garage. Incredibly, this was the first retirement from Hypercar in the whole race.

And just when I thought I could sit back and rest for five minutes, immediately race control sent out the message that two of the race contenders – the #4 and #5 Porsches, and the #12 JOTA Cadillac all received drive through penalties for breaching full course yellow procedures, immediately throwing both those car’s races off the rails again. The cause of #31’s incident was the unfortunate fact that the car hit a rabbit somewhere along the track. Meanwhile, Iron Lynx’s #9 and Inter Europol’s #43 had jumped past Ollie Gray in the #48 VDS Panis LMP2 to change the podium order in that class, while AO Racing and IDEC Sport’s cars weren’t far behind. And in LMGT3 Finn Gehrsitz had moved up into second place and past Simon Mann’s #21 AF Corse Ferrari. Leading the class though was Ricardo Pera who was storming away to nearly a minute’s lead in the #92 Manthey Porsche 911. Hypercar was seeing it’s own fierce fight for fourth was taking place. It was an assault from the factory Ferraris on the #15 BMW of Rafaelle Marciello holding on to his fourth place for dear life. Up ahead though the top three remained the same. Ferrari meanwhile were switching their cars around and placing them onto alternate strategies to try and beat the Porches.

Ricardo Pera soon pitted after building a strong lead for the #92 crew, with Ryan Hardwick taking control of the LMGT3 lead. And as the Hypercars made their first pit stops after the safety car, it was Toyota’s #8 car of Riyo Hirakawa who led the race for the first time after the #6 Porsche came in to take its next stop. And that Toyota led on pace on a similar virtual energy reading to the cars behind – after just over 12 hours, it had finally taken the lead on pace alone. And this was the closest the race had been, as the top ten were split by barely a minute on the road, with the #15 BMW now in real contention too. To this point I’d bee in two minds of whether or not I believed they could pose a genuine threat for the overall win, and after the safety car I’d say they absolutely can so long as they run a flawless race. They don’t seem to have the flat out pace of Ferrari and Porsche but should they keep themselves in the hunt you never know what might happen. But up at the front, it was Toyota V Ferrari for the third year in a row – the #8 vs the #83 for the lead, Riyo Hirakawa trying to hold his lead from Yei Yifei, the lead battle raging through the thirteenth hour of the race. The move seemed inevitable and indeed it was, the #83 now lead the 24 Hours of Le Mans once more with just over eleven hours to go. And from there Ferrari then started to rebuild their advantage, fighting now with the #6 and #5 Porsches.

Meanwhile in LMGT3, it was still the Manthey #92 from the AF Corse #21 with the Lexus pair, #78 ahead of #87, running third and fourth as the Iron Dames also continued to move up through the field. And then came the news that despite being many, many laps down the #31 WRT BMW would attempt to at least finish the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Meanwhile in LMP2, the lead battle was still unchanged. AO Racing’s #199 now held the advantage LMP2 and the Pro/Am category ahead of the IDEC Sport duo, #28 ahead of #18 while VDS Panis and Inter Europol were down in fourth and fifth. It’s incredible how changeable and close those two classes were at this point in the race, you could pick any one of six competitors as favourites in LMP2 and LMGT3 is also far too close to call.

And just after that, at quarter past five on Sunday morning the #50 of Miguel Molina overtook the #6 Porsche and made it a Ferrari 1-2-3 for the first time in many hours. And there was good news for Toyota, as having suffered for so long the #7 throwback liveried car had been driven back into the top ten by Nyck De Vries and was now hunting down Jenson Button’s #38 JOTA Cadillac for eighth.

As the sunrise came, the race had settled down again but Proton Competition’s #99 Porsche received a drive through penalty for speeding in the pit lane. But then, LMP2 threw the wider race anther curveball. IDEC Sport’s #18 machine that had been in contention all the way through the LMP2 class honours lost a wheel on the run down to Indianapolis, a yellow flag being brought out to deal with it. It’s a real shame for that car, with two Le Mans rookies having their chances at a Le Mans finish ruined. With a wheel lost, that was it for the one side of IDEC Sport’s garage. This is though a good experience for the team who will operate Genesis’s Hypercar project from 2026 onwards and when they return with the luxury brand they’ll be returning with a more powerful car and the backing of a manufacturer. But for now, their mark on the race will be that of a slow zone on the Mulsanne as the remaining #77 Ford Mustang had the race’s first brake change. At the front of the class, the leader was now the #81 Corvette ahead of the #21 and #92 Manthey, as LMP2 was still in the hands of Esetban Masson and VDS Panis Racing

As the hours left crossed into the single digits, Nicklas Nielsen was on a charge and set the fastest lap of the entire race to that point as he hunted down the #8 Toyota for third place as Kevin Magnussen was also looking to climb to fifth, with the #6 Porsche of Kevin Estre and Norman Nato’s #12 JOTA Cadillac. And amazingly, penalties were still coming in. in LMP2, the #199 AO Racing Pro/Am car of P.J Hyett and the remaining #63 Iron Lynx Mercedes both received drive through penalties before Nielsen set another fastest lap of the race. And then, while chasing a top five finish in LMGT3 the Iron Dames found themselves in the gravel trap, bringing out just the fourth full course yellow of the race.

With 20 minutes to go in this section of the race then, LMGT3 has largely zero change in the running order with the #21 AF Corse, Richard Leitz’s #92 Manthey Porsche and the TF Sport Corvette with Tom Van Rompuy aboard. Leading LMP2 was still Esteban Masson’s VDS Panis Racing ahead of Nick Yelloly’s #43 Inter Europol was also in the mix, as was the remaining #28 IDEC Sport machine as well as Iron Lynx’s Proton-backed LMP2 in third place. And in Hypercar, the Ferrari battles were brewing again with Philip Hanson and James Calado hunted his countryman down with ease. Closing out the hour was the battle for third, between Nicklas Nielsen and Sebastian Buemi in the #8, a great scrap for position and a provisional podium place.

I’m now starting to feel the effects of having blogged every hour of this race with no sleep, as it’s now remaining somewhat of a challenge to stay awake. On the previous attempts at staying awake until the end this time of day has always been my achilles heel, so hopefully next time I’m writing this I’m in a better position. We’ve surpassed dawn, Sunday is upon us. Who can keep their race intact as we go to the business end of Le Mans.

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