In its 100th year, Le Mans looks to the future and nods to the past

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At precisely 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, June 10, a 1923 Chenard-Walcker Sport putters down the front straight. Its flowing fenders look like waves against the boat-like body of the open-topped car. It looks very out of place against the tall catch-fences, enormous grandstands, and thousands of enthusiasts recording on their cell phones.

But this very car won the inaugural 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1923 after completing 108 laps of the circuit. Because a few pesky world wars got in the way, 2023 marks the 100th anniversary of the historic race, but only its 91st running. And more than perhaps any Le Mans of the past 10 years, this one shows us what the race holds for the future.

A flurry of other race cars follows the Bentley, each one lower, faster, and more modern than the last. Looking like an overweight airplane without wings, the 1950 Cadillac “Le Monstre” lumbers past the grandstands. A 1951 Porsche 356 SL follows it, with its distinctive aero wheel covers. It marks Porsche’s first entry into the famous race, and its first class win.

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More legends follow: a gull-winged 1952 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL glides by. Ferrari 250 GTO chassis 3387 slides down the front straight, its V12 making a noise almost befitting a car with its hefty price tag (it is, wouldn’t you know it, one of the most valuable cars in the world).

Then come the stars of the 1960s: the Ford GT40, the Matra V12, and the red Porsche 917 which won Le Mans in 1970. From there, we see legends of Group C, like the Porsche 962, and Mazda 787-B with its dazzling scream. Afterwards follows what seems an endless line of Audis, Porsches, and Toyotas, which terminates in the modern era.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans is part of the FIA World Endurance Championship. The WEC series includes endurance races at Sebring, Spa, Monza, Fuji, and others, but France’s Le Mans is clearly the crown jewel of the season. In fact, Le Mans represents one part of motorsports’ triple crown of premier races, along with the Monaco Grand Prix of Formula One; and the Daytona 500 of NASCAR. Graham Hill is the only driver in history to have won all three.

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From GTE, to LMP2, and, now, the LMH class

For those who may want a primer in how this race is actually run, I’ll explain. Unlike in F1 or NASCAR, there are three classes of cars at Le Mans, and they all compete simultaneously on the same track. The fastest group contends for the overall win, while slower classes compete for class wins.

There’s GTE, which is essentially the “GT” class, for race-prepped versions of street cars you could hypothetically buy. It’s the only class at Le Mans to feature production-based cars, and as such these cars have the slowest lap times on the grid. That said, I’d argue they represent the best-looking class, populated by cars like the Porsche 911 RSR, Aston Martin vantage AMR, Ferrari 488 GTE Evo, and Chevrolet Corvette C8.R.

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Next up is the “Le Mans Prototype” class, officially dubbed LMP2. It’s essentially a spec class, with the entire field sharing one engine, and all cars mandatorily built to a very close standard to each other. I think this class is more fun for competitors than it is spectators.

But the big news this year is the long-awaited debut of the Hypercar class. Essentially, the Hypercar (or LMH) class pairs production-based engines with an electrically driven front axle and a bespoke race-car chassis and body. The result is cars that look and sound quite different from each other on the field.

And what’s more, there are a lot of them. This year the LMH grid saw competitors from Cadillac, Ferrari, Peugeot, Porsche, and Toyota, as well as independents, like Glickenhaus and Vanwall. Visually, the cars are very distinct: Porsche’s entry wows with its wide and low front end; Cadillac’s wears razor-sharp headlights and a bulky airbox; and Peugeot’s, perhaps oddly, sports no rear wing at all.

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The engines are also very different. Porsche uses a twin-turbo V8, Ferrari utilizes a twin-turbo V6 from the 296 sports car, and the Cadillac is powered by a naturally-aspirated 5.5L V8 from the Corvette Z06. Anchoring the top class to production engines that consumers could actually buy is a very good thing.

A surplus of track, run a surplus of hours

It’s hard to grasp the scale of Le Mans. The track is 13.6 km long, and walking the Mulsanne straight section alone, from end to end, would take you over an hour. For 2023, over 325,000 racing fans flocked to the track in the middle of the French countryside. Many croissants were eaten. The pit garages were busy tending to the 58 cars from three classes.

Your average F1 race lasts about 90 minutes, so just imagine watching 16 of those back to back, non-stop. It’s absolutely crazy. It’s also more than a race: there’s a Ferris wheel, a go-kart track, a museum featuring real Le-Mans-winning cars through history, and a festival-sized stage with concerts and music going all night.

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But away from the hot dogs, beer, and sunburnt English tourists on holiday, there was a race happening. Crashes, breakdowns, and even an encounter with an errant squirrel affected the contest for the first place. The winning #51 Ferrari found itself in the gravel traps early in the race and had to claw back to the front of the pack during the gruelling night hours. A mid-afternoon rain squall on Saturday caused many of the cars on slick tires to spin out or crash. A track this large can have rain on one end of it; and dry pavement and sunshine on the other.

In the end, the #51 Ferrari LMH team prevailed, becoming the first overall winners in a Ferrari since 1973. Toyota came second overall, after being saddled with some extra balance of performance ballast just before the race; and the top LMH Porsche managed ninth place. In the GT class, the lone Corvette managed a win against a very competitive field. It marks the latest in a long line of Corvette GT class wins that goes all the way back to 1960.

The dawn of the Hypercar class signals a new era in Le Mans racing, and a chance for new dynasties to form. It brings top-level racing cars closer to the ones we drive, and looks to the electrified future that road cars face. But the centenary edition was also a chance to look back at the progress that Le Mans itself has brought to cars. And maybe 100 years from now, they’ll celebrate the 200th running of the race, with that #51 car rolling down the front straight.