Yahoo News We've Got Dueling 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans Recaps
The 24 Hours of Le Mans is such a big event that it takes three safety cars to cover the 8.47-mile track during a caution period. So how could we possibly tell the story of the 2024 running of the famous race with only one race reporter? Thanks to the Cadillac and Ford teams, we were able to send Rich Ceppos, our Buyer's Guide director (and a Le Mans rookie) and senior features editor Elana Scherr (heading to the Circuit de la Sarthe for her fourth time; she claims to love the race, but we suspect she really goes just for the baguettes et beurre).
Ceppos focused on the World Endurance Championship (WEC) Le Mans Hypercar (LMH) class, (the LMDh hybrid prototypes that run as GTP in U.S.-based IMSA endurance races) while Scherr spent more time with the LM GT3 cars (GTD in IMSA), the big-winged race versions of more recognizable production cars. Neglected is the nonhybrid P2 prototypes. Next year we'll have to send three writers.
The Hosts
Ceppos
This year, nine manufacturers sent their home-grown Hypercars to the 92nd running of Le Mans to battle for the finish line—and presumably the bump in street-car sales that comes with a win on Sunday. BMW, Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini, Peugeot, Alpine, Toyota, Isotta Fraschini, and Cadillac all had cars in the scrum. I was a guest of Cadillac which gave me up-close access to the team, the garages, and the drivers. One of the coolest moments happened the day before the race, when I realized I was chatting with a two-time IndyCar champion, a four-time IndyCar champion, and a six-time IndyCar champ (Álex Palou, Sébastien Bourdais, and Scott Dixon). Bourdais drives the Caddy R full time in the IMSA series, while Dixon and Palou were here to co-pilot it at Le Mans. Their IndyCar team owner, Chip Ganassi, runs the two Caddies competing in IMSA, as well as their IndyCar team, so filling out the Le Mans driver roster with top talent for Le Mans was an all-in-the-family affair.
The IndyCar champs had plenty to say about how this big, enclosed sports car compares with the 500-pounds-lighter, open-wheel, open-cockpit Indy cars they're normally competing in.
"This car doesn't react as quickly," said Palou, referring to steering, braking, and directional changes. "The speed, we are used to, but it feels a little lazy in the slow corners. I can't attack or brake as hard." But that doesn't mean he dislikes the Hypercar. The R has a lot more adjustability than the Indy car, he said. "You can adjust the brake balance—even how that needs to change at different speeds—the diff locking, the traction control."
Dixon agreed, saying, "[The R] is more sophisticated electronically, but the Indy car is more analog. You can adjust the engine maps in the Indy car but not much else." Dixon, known for his mastery at saving fuel while still going fast, thought that skill wouldn't come into play at Le Mans. "It's such a long lap that stretching the fuel trying to gain an extra lap between pit stops probably wouldn't work. It's best to just drive flat-out."
Bourdais, who had earlier in the day come within a couple tenths of a second of snatching pole position, was already thinking ahead to the race. "We make the lap time in the corners and under braking," he said. "This car is good in braking." But the R was suffering a top-speed disadvantage down the 3.7-mile long Mulsanne Straight, where the fastest Hypercars would hit close to 215 mph. "We need another 5 km/h (3 mph) more top speed," he said, so they could get by the faster Hypercars that they might catch in the corners leading up to the Mulsanne. It's something that would prove true when we saw the top-speed readouts posted on the track's timing-and-scoring feed: The Caddys were down about 5 km/h in top speed compared to the quickest competitors.
Scherr
I was at Le Mans thanks to an invite from Ford, which was going up against the same roster of sports cars that it hopes to beat in the dealerships: Porsche, BMW, Aston Martin, Ferrari, Lamborghini, and McLaren. Ford was supporting three Mustang GT3 cars backed by Proton Competition and Multimatic Motorsports and was also showing off the new GTD Mustang in the paddock. The GTD is a street-to-race-to-street variant of the pony car that was inspired by the race cars we'd see during the weekend (which were themselves built as track versions of the street-going Dark Horse Mustang).
The driver makeup on GT3 teams must encompass a range of experience—with at least one "bronze-rated," or amateur, driver on each team—so the names of the Ford entries aren't quite as familiar to the casual race fan as say... Scott Dixon. Ford did give us a chance to talk with Christopher Mies (in the No. 44), Dennis Olsen (No. 88) and Benjamin Barker (No. 77), who shared that the season's start in Qatar had been difficult but that the ponies were running well in practice and they felt strong about their chances. Mies was running his first Le Mans but was no rookie to endurance runs, having done Spa and Nürburgring. He said the Le Mans circuit is "not as exciting" as the 'Ring but that the crowd (a sold-out 329,000) was absolutely mental, and he'd never experienced anything like it. When asked how information and setup is shared across a three-car team, the drivers laughed and said that since Barker had set the fastest qualifying lap, they were all using his setup. "For a fee," said Barker. I did see three-time Le Mans winner Allan McNish in the Ford garage, so they had their share of racing celebrity advice too.
Before the Race
Ceppos
In almost every open field, vast tent cities covered the muddy grass. Every manner of portable living was represented, from RVs to car camping to precarious tarps on poles over soggy bedrolls. The Cadillac group stayed in converted shipping containers (it was more civilized than you'd imagine) at the Le Mans Hippodrome across from a row of empty stalls. A historic plaque a few feet away from my sleeping quarters commemorated Wilbur Wright's first European flight in 1908. From my room, I could hear the cars tearing down the Mulsanne Straight a quarter-mile away.
Before the race weekend, the cars clear off the track, and the entire circuit opens for the free Circuit de la Sarthe self-tour. You can walk it, jog it, ride a bike around it, do cartwheels across it—anything but drive on it. My group did it on e-bikes, which has got to be the best way of all. I had an almost-driver's-eye view of the track, which wends its way through the rural landscape like an unassuming country road—the Mulsanne Straight actually is a public road the rest of the year—except this road has chicanes and blue-and-yellow racing curbs at the corners. The Mulsanne is racetrack smooth. The wooden planks attached to the race cars' underbellies—there to ensure the cars have adequate ground clearance—leave brown scrape marks when they traverse the road's crown at high speed. During my lap, we came across a large vintage car show taking place at Mulsanne Corner, witnessed the start of a marathon, and could see how closely the track borders several houses, restaurants, and businesses.
My tour was led by a pair of Le Mans veterans: current Corvette factory C8.R GT3 racer Tommy Milner, who has two Le Mans wins, and retired Corvette factory racer Oliver Gavin with five Le Mans triumphs. As we circulated on our e-bike tour, Gavin and Milner talked us around the track. "That tan building is a reference point when coming down the Mulsanne Straight to the Daytona chicane," Gavin said. "When I saw it I knew I was about to get into the braking zone at maybe 175 or 180 mph and should start looking for the braking markers. We braked just ahead of the 100 marker." At the Porsche Curves, Milner said, "These are very high-speed, very tricky; you must stay off the curbs on the inside. Get too far outside, and it'll suck you into the wall. A lot of people crash here. I've crashed here."
"I did not crash here," proclaimed Gavin with a laugh. Typical of the weekend's weather patterns, in the two hours it took for us to navigate a full lap on the e-bikes, rain poured down on us three different times, but briefly enough so that we were almost dry before another squall hit. That same weather pattern throughout the weekend would make this one of the trickiest and most competitive Le Mans 24-Hour events ever.
Scherr
The Ford group didn't get into Le Mans as early as Rich did with Cadillac. Instead we toured the French countryside, driving ourselves in GT and Dark Horse Mustangs from Paris to Le Mans (about 150 miles, if you don't get lost. My co-driver and I got lost. It was not his fault). I was entrusted with a bright-yellow GT convertible that I shared with a lovely fellow from Poland, who was excited to tell me that a Polish driver, Robert Kubica, would be competing in the 2024 race. As we revved the Mustang through outrageously pretty countryside, earning scowls from local farmers but cheers from their children, we compared our country's popular vehicles. The Corolla is big in Poland. He laughed to hear that the F-150 ruled the States. "For us, the Ranger is the big truck!"
We pulled into Le Mans in the late afternoon, nearly missed lunch because we got distracted by a shop that had not one, not two, but three Matra-Simca Bagheeras out front and then had a chance to practice our e-brake parallel-parking skills with instruction from stuntman and Guinness World Record holder Paul Swift. Swift can park a Dark Horse between two other Mustangs with a perfect J-turn. For our practices we used cones, but I'm proud to say that my bumpers didn't touch the edges... at least by the third try.
In 2023 I stayed in little shipping container cabins like Rich did this year, but Ford chose a little more luxury with actual hotel rooms in the city of Le Mans. If you're taking yourself to the race, one of the first choices to make is if you'd like the comfort and relative quiet of staying in the city or the convenience and excitement of staying at the race. Personally I like the racetrack, but our hotel was right at the tram station, which made it pretty easy to get back and forth. Also I got to see a man in a third-story window take a smoke break with his cat, which felt quintessentially French. I like to get my money's worth from travel.
Why Race Le Mans?
Ceppos
Cadillac was back for a second try at this year's 24 Hours of Le Mans after its sleek, bewinged V-Series.R scored an impressive third-place podium finish in 2023. Why is Cadillac competing at the highest level of international sports-car racing and coming here to the biggest, most famous, and most visible event on the schedule? The answer is marketing or, more accurately, credibility—building the brand's image in the eyes of customers. Cadillac wants to be considered a viable competitor to the likes of Mercedes, BMW, and Porsche, said outgoing Cadillac executive chief engineer Brandon Vivian. "We're here to compete against the cars from the top luxury brands." (The day before the race Vivian got promoted to lead GM's advanced engineering troops.) It's all part of Cadillac taking yet another shot at the European market, where it's tried and fallen short several times before. John Roth, vice president, Global Cadillac, told us that part of being a true luxury carmaker is selling cars around the world. To be seen as on that top level, he said, "We need to be global," echoing the goal implicit in his job title. "With Europe's high interest in EVs, we see an opportunity for us right now with the Lyriq, and more so with the new Optiq."
If there are hard business reasons for Cadillac's quest to win Le Mans, there's also romance in the undertaking. It had to be achieved in badass American style. Each Hypercar team designs and builds its own gasoline engines, and Cadillac chose its gas engine based on wanting it to sound uniquely American, according to Vivian. While the other eight manufacturers went with turbocharged V-6s and V-8s, Cadillac chose a naturally aspirated V-8 (turbos dull the exhaust note). It also had to have a conventional cross-plane crankshaft rather than a flat-plane crank so that it would blast out the classic thunder of a traditional American V-8 and not be mistaken for something from Ferrari or Lamborghini. Mission accomplished. The Caddy's 5.5-liter V-8 is a thunderstorm on four wheels, gloriously booming its way around the circuit with a sound so distinct you can tell when it's passing by your location without even looking up.
Scherr
I gotta back up Rich's description of the Caddy sound. Holy glory, that was good. Each Hypercar leaves the pits initially on its electric motor, so when the engine fires up near the exit to pit lane it feels like it will shake the grandstands down. Even competitors admitted to loving it. Completing this show of patriotism, the GT3 Mustangs sounded pretty bonkers too. It's not a huge car in the U.S., but they looked massive among the lower and flatter Lambos and Porsches, as if their very sound, a round boom against the other cars' scream, was physically inflating them like bullfrogs in a fast-moving pond.
Ford's reasons for racing are basically the same as Cadillac's. It is interested in expanding its European market, and even in the U.S. Ford wants to be seen as an alternative to BMW, rather than being typecast as a straight-line muscle car. Speaking of which, I asked Bill Ford if he was planning to capitalize on the Mustang being the last ICE muscle car standing once the Camaro, Challenger, Charger, and CT5-V Blackwing rev their last or transition to electric. He smiled and shrugged, saying that while they didn't have a marketing plan based on that fact, they weren't unaware of it. "The ICE business isn't dead," he said. "We're going to stay in it, but only with our sexiest versions."
Tech Transfer: Real or Imagined?
Ceppos
I'm skeptical when carmakers talk up the tech transfer they get from racing making their street cars better. The transfer these days goes more the other way: from production street cars to racing machines. Race cars, even Hypercars, have a simpler set of requirements to satisfy than street cars. Their job is to go as fast as possible under the existing rules. But they don't have to fire up on subzero days, or drive in the snow, or be comfortable for the daily commute, or roomy enough to take the soccer team to a game. GM does have a couple of places where components or technologies used in racing have made it into street cars however. "Aerodynamics is one place where we have tech transfer," said Vivian. "The front underbody wings used on the CT4-V and CT5-V Blackwings started out as identical to the ones on the race cars. They actually made too much front downforce, so we had to modify them. Also, the software in the Corvette's performance data recorder is exactly the same as what we use to analyze the performance of the race cars; it just goes deeper for the race team, into more vehicle parameters." The digital rearview mirrors used in much of racing were pioneered in GM production vehicles. The most direct bit of tech transfer concerns the GT3-class Corvette C8.R's flat-plane crank V-8, which is the heart of the streetgoing Z06. On a visit to the V-Series.R's pit garages, Russ O'Blenes, director of GM Motorsports Propulsion & Performance, explained that the engine engineers developing the Z06 street engine also worked on the race engine, which was on track two seasons before it showed up in the production cars. "We shared all that information and learning," said O'Blenes, so the street engine ended up largely the same as the race engine. "We only changed three major things for the race car: the oil pump, the sump, and the front cover."
Scherr
It's common to make a race car out of a street car—in fact, that's what homologation requires, that there be a certain number of production cars available to back up a racing machine. What Ford has done with the GTD, taking components and inspiration from the race car and bringing it back as a street car, is unusual. The GT3 was based on the Dark Horse, but once CEO Jim Farley saw it, he reportedly said, "We need a GT3 for the road!" The GTD uses a rear transaxle, the same track width, and aero based on the GT3, but without the restrictions of the race rules, it can have an active wing and underbody aero, an adjustable suspension, carbon brakes, and a much more comfortable interior. Oh, and its supercharged V-8 is said to belt out more than 800 horsepower, which far exceeds that of the GT3 racer's V-8.
The Race Experience
Ceppos
Le Mans during race weekend is a mass of humanity, an endless sea of bodies. It's hard to see where the track facilities end and the town of Le Mans begins. The track is fish-shaped and and nearly nine miles around, and once you've had your tickets electronically checked at an entrance and are inside the confines of the track, you're on what are normally public roads and lanes. Walking any of the pedestrian thoroughfares is like being in downtown Manhattan during rush hour; you're a salmon fighting upstream against a river of humanity—more than half of whom are wearing racing-themed gear, from all kinds of racing series.
There's plenty to see and do when you're not watching the cars blast by. There's a vast merch area, where you can spend huge amounts on expensive team gear—some team jackets go for 300 to 400 euros. Spectators throng to the famous Le Mans Ferris wheel near the Porsche crossover bridge, you can plunk down in the expansive front straight grandstands, and there are ample food concessions. Attendees with the ability to pay extra, favored customers, and lucky auto journalists get access to luxurious suites with incredible on-track views and endless supplies of champagne and cheese.
Getting around the track is best done by shuttle, unless you have comfortable shoes and a good sense of direction. At the Daytona chicane, the first on the Mulsanne Straight installed to keep the speeds down, the viewing spot is only a few feet from the guardrail, and the cars almost brush it as they hurl themselves into the slow right-left-right sequence. At the famed Indianapolis corner, the fastest cars come in at nearly 200 mph and have to brake in short order for a sweeping, banked left-hander. Typical for this year's race, a squall soon came through, forcing the field to tiptoe through the corners on their way to the pits for rain tires. The Le Mans track is so large that the weather can be different at different corners. That makes the decisions of the strategists back in the pits incredibly difficult. In more than a couple of cases, some cars, including the Cadillacs, were called in for wet tires only to have to come back a lap or two later to switch back to slicks as the circuit quickly dried.
Scherr
At the start of the race, 4 p.m., all the race strategists are glued to the lap times, watching not only their own cars, but their competitors. Talk to anyone ahead of time, and they'll say they feel okay but suspect the other teams have been sandbagging. Curiously, nobody ever admits to sandbagging themselves. Once the race starts, the times get honest.
If you stand anywhere along a straight, the cars go by so quickly it's all you can do to follow them, let alone recognize which is which. I found myself in a sort of hypnotic paralysis, unable to move from the fence, my eyes traveling back and forth like a speed-reader during study hall. My friend Michael says he thinks it's like REM sleep, that the act of following the fast movements puts one in a fugue state. I'm tempted to agree.
At close to two hours in, it's raining. A Ferrari crashes and limps by, mirror flapping. The BMW art car spins. A crackle comes over the race radio: "Slow down, you got no tire on the right rear." Several times we'll watch a car slide into the pits on the stiffness of chassis and three wheels. At close to 8 p.m., the sun comes out and casts glittering shadows along the wet track. During the pit stops, crewmen rush out like busy ants. My favorite is the windshield cleaner, who jumps on the hood like a swimsuit carwash babe, pulling tear-offs and checking the windshield wiper. Before 9 p.m., the first of the Alpine Hypercars is out. Porsche and Cadillac are fighting for the lead. The Iron Dames GT3 Lamborghini (an all-female driving team) is in the garage after a nasty wallop from an ill-driven 911. The crowd is riled; the Dames are a favorite, with a long line outside their merch trailer.
At 10 p.m. it's still light, but the clouds are coming back and everything is lit in sleepy gray-blue. One of my personal favorites, the No. 46 BMW driven by MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi, comes in for a driver change. Val hops out, his famous curls frizzy and helmet-damp. "This is a special place, a special track," he tells the interviewer. The team is doing well, Val is fast on any number of wheels. There is no clear front-runner in any class. The top three Hypercars each have swapped places dozens of times, and it's only six hours in.
Five minutes later it's raining, and the track looks like a practice rink for the Ice Capades, with spins in every direction. Headlights illuminate the falling rain like physical projections from the front of the cars. There's a huge crash, a BMW, and we spend the next two hours or so under safety car. At one point the No. 77 Mustang, the favorite of the three for the win, comes in with a steering problem, but the No. 88 is up to sixth place. In the garages, it's dinnertime, the crew stuffing themselves with sandwiches while on alert for an incoming car. In the infield, there's a dance party in the Carlsberg beer tent. Someone is singing along to Irene Cara's "What a Feeling" in a German accent. Around midnight there's a dog on the track. The announcers assure us he got off unharmed. No. 88 is up to second place. At the corners, the cars pop and shoot flames as they slow down. The rain picks up.
It rains and rains and rains.
It's safety car and safety car and safety cars. Four hours of safety cars.
One of Rossi's teammates wrecks the car. They're out. Scott Dixon's Caddy leaks oil everywhere. It's out. One of the Porsches is out. The Mustangs keep going.
The Finish
Ceppos
For the Cadillac team, this year wasn't nearly as successful as 2023. Early stops for rain tires dropped them down to the middle of the 23-car Hypercar pack, and it took hours for them to claw their way up the order. On Sunday, the No. 311 V-Series.R driven by Jack Aitken, Pipo Derani, and newcomer Felipe Drugovich spun out entering Indianapolis and slammed into the tirewall, doing serious damage that took 31 laps to fix. The No. 3 Caddy of Bourdais, Renger van der Zande, and Dixon, which had been running in the Hypercar midfield for much of the race, suffered a puncture of its oil tank midday on Sunday and was retired. For much of the last quarter of the race the No. 2 car driven by Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn, and Alex Palou alternated between first place and sixth as it, a pair of Ferraris, and the two Toyota Gazoo entries cycled through their pit-stop cadence. In the end, the No. 2 Caddy had posted the second-quickest lap but was ultimately classified seventh. Ahead of it was the winning Ferrari—a repeat for the team—followed by a Gazoo Racing Toyota, and the second Ferrari. The pole-sitting Penske Porsche finished sixth.
Scherr
One of the wildest things about any 24-hour race, but Le Mans in particular, is how it feels endless at first, like you have forever to do and see anything you want, but suddenly it's Sunday afternoon and there's only a few hours left. I rode the Ferris wheel, watching the cars zig and zag beneath me. I strolled through the campsites, kicking away beer cans and baguette ends. The sounds of the cars had become a constant, a soundtrack inside my head. My throat hurt from shouting over the roar. Everyone was greasy and smelled damp. It should have been awful, but I didn't want it to end. All too soon we were at the final lap. All the cars looked pummeled, like they'd gone round in a cement mixer full of mud and marbles. I've been to off-road races where the finishers came in cleaner. Happily, the Iron Dames drove an incredible last half of the race, finishing in fifth. The GT3 class got the checkered flag with the No. 91 Manthey EMA Porsche in first, followed by the No. 31 Team WRT BMW. The Mustangs represented well for us, with a third and fourth place finish. There were cheers; they'd won over fans with their big rumbles. No. 88 did a little celebratory burnout after crossing the finish line. Viva America. Can't wait for next year.
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