2026 24 Hours of Le Mans Race Report — Hour 23

STATE OF PLAY INTO THE FINAL HOUR

After twenty-three relentless hours around the 13.626km Circuit de la Sarthe, the 94th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans has delivered one of the closest Hypercar finishes in living memory. Cadillac, BMW and Toyota have traded the lead all race long, and as the clock counts down towards the 16:00 local flag it is Toyota that has forced its way to the front. The Japanese marque has manoeuvred both of its GR010 Hybrids ahead of the gold Cadillac that had controlled so much of the night, setting up a grandstand finish with the result still far from settled.

Image - Rick Kiewiet - Prescott Motorsport

The decisive swing came in the 21st hour. Brendon Hartley, having taken over the No.8 Toyota, produced a blistering opening to his stint and picked off Norman Nato in the No.12 Cadillac. Nyck de Vries followed him through in the recovering No.7, passing the Cadillac under braking to complete a Toyota one-two. The two red-and-white cars then began a measured duel of their own, the gaps tight enough that the team has had to manage the risk of its drivers racing one another with victory on the line.

HOW THE LEAD WAS WON AND LOST

Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA looked, for long stretches, like the team to beat. The No.12 of Louis Deletraz, Will Stevens and Norman Nato emerged from the night with a healthy advantage after the sister No.38 — which had led earlier in the race — was retired at 08:00 local time with a persistent power steering failure. But the No.12’s grip on the race loosened through the morning. A drive-through penalty for a slow-zone infringement dropped it back into the pack, and a poorly timed Full Course Yellow forced the crew into an emergency stop that compromised its strategy and invited BMW and Toyota back into the fight.

A Safety Car at three-quarter distance, deployed to recover Ayhancan Guven’s heavily damaged No.91 Manthey Porsche, erased every hard-won gap and bunched the leaders nose to tail. BMW briefly looked the strongest, the No.20 of Robin Frijns, Rene Rast and Sheldon van der Linde leapfrogging Toyota with a no-stop tyre gamble to build a 20-second cushion. That advantage vanished with the neutralisation, and then Frijns locked up and slithered through the gravel at pit entry, dropping the BMW from first to fourth. The mistake kept the No.20 in the hunt but handed the initiative to others.

HYPERCAR STANDINGS APPROACHING HOUR 23

Pos	Car / Team	Gap
1	No.8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid – Gazoo Racing (Buemi / Hartley / Hirakawa)	Leader
2	No.7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid – Gazoo Racing (Conway / Kobayashi / de Vries)	close behind
3	No.12 Cadillac V-Series.R – Hertz Team JOTA (Deletraz / Stevens / Nato)	in contention
4	No.20 BMW M Hybrid V8 – M Team WRT (Frijns / Rast / van der Linde)	in contention
5	No.51 Ferrari 499P – AF Corse (Pier Guidi / Calado / Giovinazzi)	lead lap
6	No.83 Ferrari 499P – AF Corse (Kubica / Ye / Hanson)	lead lap

Order reflects the most recent timing; gaps in the leading group are measured in seconds and changing constantly.

FERRARI AND THE CHASING PACK

Ferrari’s hopes of a fourth straight Le Mans win were unpicked piece by piece. The No.50 499P lost 28 minutes overnight to a fire extinguisher system problem before finally stopping at Tertre Rouge with suspected electrical trouble, the latest car to be caught out by that unforgiving corner. That left the reigning manufacturers’ champions leaning on the No.51 of Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi, which recovered from an early penalty to lead the marque, shadowed by the privately entered No.83 of Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Phil Hanson — last year’s winners — inside the top six.

Behind them, Alpine ran a quietly accomplished race on its self-styled “Last Dance” at Le Mans, the No.35 A424 holding a strong upper-midfield position, while Aston Martin kept the No.007 Valkyrie inside the top ten to the delight of the British contingent. Genesis impressed on its debut despite losing the No.17 to suspension failure at Tertre Rouge, ending one half of a promising first programme.

LMP2: DUQUEINE’S HEARTBREAK

The LMP2 contest looked to be Duqueine Team’s to lose. The No.30 Oreca-Gibson of Doriane Pin, Julien Andlauer and Richard Verschoor had led for much of the night, with Pin on course to become the first female driver in nearly fifty years to stand on the overall LMP2 podium at Le Mans. That story ended cruelly with the retirement of the No.30, throwing the class wide open. The two Inter Europol Competition entries have inherited the fight at the front, with the Forestier Racing by Panis car lurking close behind, and the category set for a tense sprint to the flag.

LMGT3: CORVETTE HOLDS A SLENDER LEAD

In LMGT3, TF Sport’s bright yellow No.33 Corvette Z06 of Ben Keating, Jonny Edgar and Nicky Catsburg has led the class with composure, but the same Safety Car that reshaped the Hypercar battle wiped out a lead that had stretched beyond a minute and a half. Edgar held roughly five and a half seconds in hand over the chasing Heart of Racing Aston Martin and Akkodis ASP Lexus, a margin too slim to be comfortable with the flag in sight. Manthey’s recent run of LMGT3 success looks set to end after Guven’s accident, while both Proton Competition Mustangs hit mechanical trouble.

WEATHER AND THE RUN TO THE FLAG

After cool, tyre-friendly overnight conditions that flattered the long-running prototypes, temperatures climbed through Sunday morning and lifted the pace at the sharp end. Warm, dry weather has set the stage for a flat-out final hour with little margin for error. Toyota leads with two cars, Cadillac and BMW remain within range, and at Le Mans nothing is decided until the chequered flag falls. One slow stop, one mistake or one mechanical failure could still rewrite the result.

Draft compiled at approximately 14:00 UK, Hour 23, ahead of the finish. A full post-race report will follow after the chequered flag. | Prescott Motorsport — Adam Prescott