93rd 24 Hours of Le Mans
Part of motorsport's 'Big Three,' the annual 24 Hours of Le Mans is rightly considered the world's premier endurance race. It is the ultimate test of man and machine that combines factory backed works teams and drivers with wealthy and often very fast gentleman racers in fully fledged prototypes and production derived GT cars. Since the introduction of the Hypercar category a few years ago, the event has had a capacity grid and with 62 cars this year was no exception. The field consisted mainly of full season FIA WEC entrants and automatic invites who earned their position on the grid through achievements in other championships during the previous season. Many manufacturers are represented among the new arrivals in 2025 was the Aston Martin Valkyrie Hypercar and the Mercedes-AMG GT3 in the LMGT3 category. This marked the first appearance of the three-pointed star at La Sarthe since the 1999 edition when the Mercedes-Benz CLR flipped on at least two occasions.
To capture the event, our man on the ground was Bob van der Wolf and he returned with this 100-shot gallery from the 93rd edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Qualifying
Until the not so distant past, the race week was preceded by an official test usually held a month or two before the race. This provided the competitors with a singular opportunity to test their machines on what are normally public roads. The logistics involved of bringing the cars to Le Mans from all around the world has made this too complicated and an unneeded drain on the resources. Instead, the official test is now held the Sunday before the race with practice and qualifying run on Wednesday and Thursday. This provided teams with sufficient time for adjustments and/or repairs in case something happened in any of the sessions before the French tricolore was waved, this year by Roger Federer, at exactly 3pm on Saturday afternoon.
Qualifying was split in three sessions on the basis of elimination, starting after free practice on Wednesday evening. In the top Hypercar class, the Cadillacs showed great pace and topped all three of the sessions. Eventually, it was the Cadillac Hertz Team Jota that locked out the front row with Alex Lynn clinching pole in the #12 car. It was a fitting achievement for the British Team Jota, who celebrate their 25th anniversary this year. In the one-make LMP2 category, it was the TDS Racing Oreca that claimed pole position. Where the new Valkyries struggled for pace in the Hypercar class, it was the Aston Martin Vantage GT3 entered by the Heart of Racing Team that set the fastest time in the final qualifying session.

The race
In front of a record crowd of 332,000 spectators and under beautiful conditions, the 93rd 24 Hours of Le Mans officially got under way at 3 pm on Sunday afternoon. Although they made it through the first corners at the head of the field, the two Team Jota Cadillacs were then overtaken by the first of the three Team Penske Porsches entered. Having had to start from 21st on the grid, the sister Porsche 963 driven by Kevin Estre also had a stellar start, moving up the order to 14th on lap one and then breaching into the top five within the first hour. As the race settled down, it became apparent that the three Ferrari 499Ps, which had scored victory at Le Mans in 2023 and 2024, had the edge on pure pace. Team Penske, however, managed to run their Porsches for one lap longer between pit stops, hoping for an advantage later in the race. The second tier LMP2 category was split in two; one for all pro drivers and a Pro-Am category, which required at least one 'Bronze' gentlemen driver on the line-up. With professionals at the wheel at the start, the early LMP2 leaders were actually from the Pro-Am category. Following a series of driver changes, it was the all-pro Inter Europol #43 Gibson-engined Oreca that emerged in the lead.
The highly competitive LMGT3 category, which also has a Bronze driver requirement, saw the #46 BMW M4 GT3 take an early lead. This was a particularly popular car as it could count MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi among its drivers. Sadly, a power steering failure in the eleventh hour saw the BMW retire from the lead. Its mantel was taken over by the #92 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R. Ryan Hardwick, Richard Lietz and Riccardo Pera would continue to hold on to their, often quite slim, advantage for the remainder of the race. It was the second victory in a row for the German team, which remains undefeated at Le Mans in the LMGT3 category. The Inter Europol Competition Oreca also managed to stay out of trouble to clinch the Polish team's second victory in the LMP2 category after the breakthrough win in 2023. The car was driven by Tom Dillmann, Jakub Smiechowski and Nick Yelloly. Among the early overall leaders in the Pro-Am category was the AO by TF Oreca, nicknamed 'Spike the Dragon' by the Gunnar Jeannette run team. While they had to concede the LMP2 victory to an all-pro team, Dane Cameron, Louis Deletraz and P.J. Hyett did clinch the Pro-Am win for the American squad.
The fight for outright victory was altogether more exciting and although the nine cars on the lead lap of 2024 was not matched, there were five cars from three manufacturers still on the same lap at the end. Just one lap down there were four more cars, which was quite remarkable in a race that had only very few interruptions and was not neutralised for hours for adverse weather like the year before. Emerging as the biggest pretender to the Ferrari throne was the #6 Porsche that had started from the back of the Hypercar grid and was shared by Kevin Estre, Matt Campbell and Laurens Vanthoor. The latter had the opportunity to win Daytona, Sebring and Le Mans outright in a single season but as it turned out, the Belgian missed this unique achievement by a mere 14 seconds. The Team Penske Porsche had to concede victory to the privately backed AF Corse Ferrari of Phil Hanson, Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye. It was a popular win for the ex-Formula 1 driver and the ultimate redemption after his life threatening accident in a rally car over a decade ago. He was also the first Pole to win outright at Le Mans and Ye was the first Chinese driver to do so. The #51 works Ferrari placed third and the #50 Ferrari crossed the line in fourth but was disqualified for a minor technical infringement after the race. This promoted the pole setting Team Jota Cadillac to fourth.

Final thoughts
One of the big talking points after, and also before and during the race was Balance of Performance (BoP), which is used to level the playing field. With three straight wins, the BoP at Le Mans seems to favour the Ferrari 499P but the Team Penske Porsche came so achingly close that it seems that the balance between these two distinctly different cars, built to two separate sets of regulations were quite evenly matched. Perhaps the same can not be said for some manufacturers further down the order but that is not necessarily the fault of the rules and the rule makers. Regardless of the regulations, scoring an outright victory at Le Mans is no small feat and a privateer team doing so fits right in with the long and colourful history of this great event. The great colours of this year's edition were captured with verve by Bob van der Wolf in this 100-shot gallery.