LE MANS, France – Officials from the Automobile Club de l’Ouest have announced the 62-car grid for the upcoming 88th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The headlining class, LMP1, features the smallest field of the four classes. Only six teams are entered in LMP1, spearheaded by the two-car squad fielded by two-time and defending overall winners Toyota Gazoo Racing.
Toyota Gazoo Racing’s No. 7 entry will be shared by Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez. The No. 8 entry out of the Toyota Gazoo Racing stable will be driven by defending race winners Kazuki Nakajima and Sébastien Buemi, as well as new teammate Brendon Hartley.
Other entries in LMP1 include a two-car program from Rebellion Racing and two entries from Team TNT. This is the final appearance in the 24 Hours of Le Mans by the LMP1 class, which will be eliminated next year in favor of the new Le Mans Hypercar class.
The GTE Pro division features a stout 11-car field, with 10 of those entries being factory entries. Among them are the American Corvette Racing team, which will prepare and field a pair of the new Chevrolet C8.R race cars.
Porsche is attacking Le Mans with four factory entries in GTE Pro, AF Corse is set to field a pair of Ferrari 488 GTE Evo racers and Aston Martin has entered two Vantage AMR entries. The only non-factory team in GTE Pro is the Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE Evo.
The biggest class this year in terms of car count is LMP2, which will feature 24 cars. There are four chassis’ represented in LMP2, including the Dallara P217, the Ligier JS P217 and the Riley MK.30. However, the ORECA 07 makes up the bulk of LMP2 the field, including a Garage 56 entry.
The Garage 56 entry comes from SRT41, which is fielding a specially adapted ORECA 07 for the trio of Takuma Aoki, Nigel Bailly and Ben Moussa. Aoki and Nigel Bailly are both parapletics, while Moussa lost one of his hands as a teenager.
Finally, GTE Am features 20 entries from a variety of teams. Eleven of those entered are full-time FIA World Endurance Championship teams.
The 24 Hours of Le Mans is scheduled for June 13-14 at Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans, France.
