The Grand Prix of Endurance is back, the City of Le Mans preparing to become motorsport’s ultimate battleground for the 95th time. Having defeated the defacto Kings of Le Mans and banished Porsche to the USA, Ferrari seek a fourth consecutive crown for the first time since 1964. Yet with the field having closed the performance gap and arriving hungrier than ever, it will be no easy task for the Scuderia – but it never has. Who will emerge from the Porsche curves at 4.00pm on Sunday? It’s time for the oldest endurance test of them all to begin… 

Hypercar

The 2026 24 Hours of Le Mans is under its first safety car in the 94th edition, as Toyota lead under the starry night with the #8, ahead of Rene Rast’s #20 BMW that still gives chase with the two JOTA Cadillacs, #12 ahead of #38, behind. The #50 Ferrari is still running strongly in fifth, just ahead of the WTR #101 Cadillac and the sister #51 Ferrari.

The #15 lost two laps as it trundled round the roads of Le Mans, before an engine cover and rear bodywork change, as well as a new set of tyres. With the Bavarian Le Mans effort effectively reduced to just the #20 car, it was the first major attrition of the Hypercar class at this year’s Le Mans. It lost 2 more laps in the pits, placing it dead last in the Hypercar class.

Meanwhile the #20 led by nearly three seconds over the #8 as the gaps condensed, with the #12 JOTA Cadillac 8sec back and the sister #38 28sec from the Robin Frijns leading car before the next pit stops, with the cooler temperatures inviting the leading runners to adopt the soft tyre properly for the first time in the race as the #38 Cadillac led by 42sec over the #20.

To compound Peugeot’s woes, the #93 received a drive through penalty for failing to respect yellow flags, as the #8 closed up on the #20 with 17 Hours to go, the two JOTA Cadillacs now third and fourth, #38 ahead of #12 but both nearly 50sec back from the car ahead.

Chancing upon the delayed #15, Kevin Magnussen duly let his race-leading teammate by and defended hard through the Porsche curves, letting Frijns have room to breathe for a short moment, but the #8 was soon back on the Dutchman’s tail. Both then pitted on the same lap, with the BMW taking fresh tires and Toyota opting to double-stint their mediums, meaning the #12 momentarily split the two.

Ferrari had struggled so far and were yet to lead overall at any point, with the #50 narrowly avoiding a huge accident on the exit of the Porsche curves, taking to the grass while slowing to avoid the #222 of United Autosports, the night now fully set in.

With 16 hours three quarter hours remaining, the #15 returned to the garage as the first of the Hypercars to do so, with a front bodywork change and significant steering changes to the internals of the car.

The defending winners, #83 also found themselves with further maladies, as a miscommunication placed the yellow Ferrari 499P onto the wrong set of tyres, causing it to fall further back from tenth place.

Up front the top three were now the only cars running laptimes inside the 3.29 barrier, opening out the gap to Will Stevens’ #12 Cadillac, the #36 Alpine of Joules Gounon and Nicklas Nielsen’s #50 Ferrari.

LMP2

As the LMP2 field was neutralised, Julien Andlauer still led the class in the #30 – despite a costly spin at the Porsche curves – ahead of the Pro/Am leading #343 of Inter Europol and Vector Sport’s #26, with the top five rounded out by the Pro class Inter Europol #43 and Harry King’s #9 that had climbed significantly up the order after a testing week thus far.

With Andlauer holding a 41sec lead over the CLX Motorsport #37 for Duqueine Team’s #30, Forestier Racing by Panis’s #29 had dropped back significantly and conceded to the Inter Europol duo of the #43 and #343 which moved up to second and third once the #37 had pitted with Ian Aguilera taking over the car.

Tyre pressure infractions worsened the stalling charge of the #24 of Nielsen Racing, with 20sec added to its next pit stops, while the #28 also received a drive through penalty for failing to respect yellow flag procedure dropping it further down the order, before being suspended which cleared the team of the penalty.

Vector Sport continued their climb up the order, and were as high as third during the eighth hour, while Andlauer continued to impress on his triple stint, the gap rising to a minute and forty seconds.

The next LMP2 to enter the pits was the #222, heading into the garage with malfunctioning headlights, dropping it to last in class and three laps down on the leading #30 after spending a lengthy eleven minutes in the garage.

Drama then came for the as-yet-untouchable Duqueine #30, as Julien Andlauer spun out at the Porsche curves and lost nearly a minute.

LMGT3

With the first safety car of the race, the LMGT3 order was shuffled significantly. While the #27 led at the one-thirds-distance mark, second was the #74 Kessel Racing Ferrari, with Guiliano Alesi’s #61 Mercedes in third. Fourth was another Ferrari, the remaining AF Corse #21 of Simon Mann, with Eric Powell’s #77 Ford Mustang leading the two Lexuses that had lost out under the safety car. The #87 was now in the hands of Clemens Schmid, with Tom Van Rompuy in the #87 directly behind.

Lexus continued to lead 1-2 at the top of the sixth hour, with the #27 third and TF Sport’s #33 Corvette having risen to fourth, displacing the #91 Manthey Porsche.

Ben Tuck was now back in the #77 Ford and brought it back up to third during the pit stop cycle, closing in on the leaders.

The first safety car of the race came out as attrition slowly arrived, as Francesco Castellaci made contact with the #88 Ford, and subsequently spun out at the Dunlop curves, beaching his #54 Ferrari in the gravel and bringing out the race’s first safety car.

Another team that had significant repairs to do, thankfully for their sake under hte safety car, was the #91 Porsche which underwent a full brake change and tyre change after sustaining light bodywork damage.

image credit: T GOUREAU, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons