24 Hours of Le Mans Preview: Ferrari, Toyota and Cadillac Lead a Wide-Open Hypercar Fight

Text & Images: Rick Kiewiet The 94th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans is almost upon us, and the entry list reads as one of the strongest in recent memory. Across all three classes, the field is deep, the pace is close, and the arguments for any number of potential winners are convincing. The test day, held yesterday at the Circuit de la Sarthe, gave a first indication of where things stand — though as ever, test day times are only part of the story.

Twelve months ago, Ferrari made it three consecutive overall victories at La Sarthe — but not in the way most expected. It was the satellite-entered #83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P of Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Philip Hanson that took the win, completing 387 laps to beat a charging #6 Porsche 963 by just 14 seconds in a finish that went down to the final stops. The factory #51 and #50 Ferraris salvaged third and fourth, while Toyota endured a difficult race — the #8 losing time to a wheel nut failure — and Aston Martin brought both Valkyries home on their Le Mans debut. In LMP2, the #43 Inter Europol Competition entry of Jakub Smiechowski, Tom Dillmann and Nick Yelloly won after a late-race reversal of fortune, while Manthey's Porsche took a controlled LMGT3 victory. Several of those same crews return in 2026 looking to repeat or improve.

Hypercar: Ferrari, Toyota and Cadillac the Ones to Beat

Ferrari arrives at La Sarthe as the defending champion — three times over. The #51 and #50 AF Corse Ferrari 499Ps have not won a race this season, but they have been consistently at the sharp end. A pole position and second place at Imola, third at Spa-Francorchamps — the results suggest a team managing its campaign carefully rather than struggling. At Le Mans, where consistency across 24 hours counts for everything, that kind of reliability is a serious asset.

Toyota won at Imola, beating Ferrari on Italian soil, and arrive at Le Mans with two Toyota TR010 Hybrids that carry the weight of expectation the team always brings to this race. Spa was a more muted weekend for the Japanese manufacturer, but writing off Toyota at Le Mans is rarely wise.

Cadillac completes the leading trio. The Cadillac V-Series.R has been fast at Le Mans in each of the last two seasons, and last year the American manufacturer claimed pole position at the Circuit de la Sarthe. For 2026, Cadillac has revised the car's aerodynamic package, most notably with a significantly lower rear wing. The message that sends is clear: Hertz Team Jota and Cadillac WTR are chasing straight-line speed, and on a circuit where the Mulsanne straight and its chicanes remain the defining feature, that could be decisive.

Beyond the top three, the race is far from settled. Alpine, Peugeot and BMW have all scored significant results this season, with BMW arriving in particularly strong form after a 1-2 finish at Spa-Francorchamps. Aston Martin has been quietly building momentum across the season, consistently scoring points and improving race by race — and it was the #007 Aston Martin Thor Team Valkyrie that set the fastest overall time on test day, an encouraging sign ahead of the race proper. Genesis make their Le Mans debut having scored their first points of the season last time out, and how the GMR-001 performs over the full 24 hours will be one of the weekend's more intriguing subplots.

LMP2: A Deep Field with Precious Little Separating Pro from Pro-Am

The LMP2 entry is as strong as it has been for years, and what makes it particularly compelling is the quality spread across both Pro and Pro-Am entries. The Pro-Am category is stacked with drivers who have spent time at the Hypercar level — Kevin Estre, Matthieu Vaxivière, Mathias Beche, Tristan Vautier, Julien Andlauer, Tom Dillmann, Dane Cameron and Laurin Heinrich among them. Jack Doohan, until recently racing in Formula 1, lines up in the #24 Nielsen Racing entry alongside David Heinemeier Hansson and Edward Pearson. The gap between the two sub-categories, in terms of driver quality, is minimal.

In the Pro category, the #22 United Autosports entry of Rasmus Lindh, Grégoire Saucy and Mikkel Jensen carries good form into Le Mans, with the squad having won the opening round of the European Le Mans Series. The #24 Nielsen, the #30 Duqueine Team of Doriane Pin, Julien Andlauer and Richard Verschoor, and the #43 Inter Europol Competition car — winner of this race twelve months ago — are all capable of going the distance at the front.

On the Pro-Am side, the #183 AF Corse entry of François Perrodo, Matthieu Vaxivière and Ben Barnicoat, the #14 TDS Racing car with Kevin Estre aboard, Romain Dumas in the #48 RD Limited Oreca and the #99 AO by TF of PJ Hyett, James Allen and Dane Cameron are the standout entries. Any of those four could realistically win the Pro-Am category outright — and given the driver quality involved, challenging the Pro entries for overall LMP2 honours is not out of the question either.

LMGT3: A Long List of Favourites

Finding a clear favourite in LMGT3 is harder than it looks. The class has produced a different winner at each round so far, and the test day results confirm that the pace is closely matched across a wide range of manufacturers.

Team WRT and Manthey bring the experience and the results to back their status as the teams to beat. WRT won the class at Imola in the #32 BMW M4 LMGT3 Evo, while Manthey won here at Le Mans twelve months ago. The #91 Manthey DK Engineering Porsche 911 GT3 R of James Cottingham, Timur Boguslavskiy and Ayhancan Güven was third fastest in LMGT3 on test day, the #32 of Darren Leung, Sean Gelael and Augusto Farfus fifth.

McLaren took victory at Spa, though the result came with an asterisk — the AF Corse Ferrari that crossed the line first was handed a penalty late in the race. The Garage 59 McLaren 720S entries will be competitive nonetheless.

Aston Martin and Ford have both produced encouraging performances this season. The Heart of Racing's Aston Martins and the two Proton Competition Ford Mustang LMGT3 entries have shown enough pace to be considered genuine contenders rather than mere outsiders. Corvette, meanwhile, has had a difficult start to 2026 and will be looking to the 24 Hours as an opportunity to reset — TF Sport, Racing Team Turkey by TF and 13 Autosport field four Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R entries between them.

Ferrari has multiple entries through Vista AF Corse and Kessel Racing and will be hard to ignore over the course of 24 hours. The class winner could come from almost anywhere on the grid — and if the opening rounds are anything to go by, it probably will.