62-Strong Grid for 2020 Le Mans Confirmed

The Automobile Club de l’Ouest have confirmed a 62-strong filed for the 2020 24 Hours of Le Mans, with six LMP1 cars, 24 LMP2, 11 LM GTE Pros and 20 LM GTE Am cars. There is also an LMP2 car confirmed for the notorious innovative car Garage 56 spot.

As has been the case since the birth of the LMP1 field, no one-off entries are in the class. Currently, the top class in the field is filled by the two championship Toyota Gazoo Racing cars, two Rebellion Racing entries – with the #3 returning to the grid after its solo performance at the 4 Hours of Silverstone – and the two Team LNT Ginettas.

Notably, the ByKolles Racing Team has not been confirmed in the Le Mans line-up, and sits second on the reserve entry list. The team have sat out of the LMP1 class in the FIA World Endurance Championship this season as they have been focusing on pulling together a hypercar to enter in the LMH class next season. They always had intentions to return to the grid for the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps and 24 Hours of Le Mans, as they confirmed last month, and were under the impression that they would be able to do so with no issues. It has come as a surprise to many that the ByKolles car is on the reserve list, and not the original entry.

LMP2 will be the biggest field on the grid, with the usual eight-strong class growing to contain 24 cars. Championship winners from European Le Mans Series and the Asian Le Mans Series in the LMP2 and LMP3 classes secured their guaranteed entry, and all join the LMP2 Le Mans grid. This sees IDEC Sport, EuroInternational (LMP3 in ELMS), Algrave Pro Racing, Rick Ware Racing and Nielsen Racing (LMP3 in ALMS) all get auto-allocations in the 24-strong class. Runners up in the LMP2 ELMS championship also get automatic entry to Le Mans, which is how G-Drive Racing will take their place on the grid.

Signatech Alpine, who receive an automatic entry for winning the race in LMP2 last year, decided to use their auto-entry for the all female Richard Mille Racing team of Tatiana Calderón, Sophia Flörsch and Katherine Legge. As the French team did not need the auto entry due to being a full-season competitor in the FIA World Endurance Championship, the decision was made to give the new ELMS team a chance to show their worth in the 24-hour endurance event.

Only one car comes from the American sports car series. IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship receives one LMP2 auto-entry and one GTE Am auto-entry to Le Mans for their competitors. For the 2020 race, Cameron Cassels took the entry, and he will bring Performance Tech over from the states to compete in LMP2.

Nine additional cars have been accepted into the LMP2 class, including the innovative car  Association SRT41 in Garage 56. Three disabled drivers; Takuma Aoki, Nigel Bailly and Snoussi Ben Moussa, will take their modified ORECA 07 racing in a team ran by quadruple amputee Frederic Sausset. Sausset competed in Le Mans himself during the 2016 rendition of the race.

All four LMP2 chassis will be racing during the blue-riband event as Rick Ware Racing bring the sole Riley MK 30 to the field. Most team will be running the ORECA 07 with Michelin tyres for the race.

The additional six cars coming to the LM GTE Pro class are all from the IMSA championship. Two Corvette Racing cars come across as usual, with the Corvette IMSA drivers returning behind the wheel after Mike Rockenfeller and Jan Magnussen drove the sole Corvette in the 6 Hours of COTA and will take it to the track for the 1,000 Miles of Sebring. Along with them, the two IMSA Porsche GT Team cars join the grid as they usually do. The sole Risi Competizione brings the Pro number up to eleven.

GTE Am sees a big growth along with LMP2 as the entry number climbs from eleven to twenty. The GTE winners of ELMS last year, Luzich Racing, take their auto-entry in the prestigious race along with second-placed Dempsey Proton Racing who will bring the #99 back to the Circuit de la Sarthe.

Michelin Le Mans Cup winners Kessel Racing and ALMS GT champions HubAuto Corsa were also awarded auto entries, along with Richard Heistand from IMSA, who will bring the JMW Motorsport into the Am class.

Outside of the full season WEC cars and the auto-entries in class, the other seven cars joining the grid are all Ferrari 488 GTE Evos, meaning the Italian outfit will have twelve cars to Porsche‘s five and Aston Martin‘s two. On sheer number of entries alone, the odds are in Ferrari’s favour to bring home the Le Mans Am crown.

Ten cars appear on the reserve entry list, and usually the top three cars manage to move onto the full grid. Spirit of Race, ByKolles and the second IDEC Sport have the best shot of making it onto the grid, but the chances of Jan Magnussen’s LMP2 entry (High Class Racing‘s second car) or Ben Hanley and Felix Rosenqvist‘s DragonSpeed LMP2 making it onto the grid are very low.

No.	Class	Team	Car	Driver 1	Driver 2	Driver 3
1	LMP1	Rebellion Racing	R13-Gibson	Gustavo Menezes	Norman Nato	Bruno Senna
3	LMP1	Rebellion Racing	R13-Gibson	Romain Dumas	Louis Deletraz	Nathanael Berthon
5	LMP1	Team LNT	Ginetta G60-LT-P1-AER	Charlie Robertson	TBA	TBA
6	LMP1	Team LNT	Ginetta G60-LT-P1-AER	Mike Simpson	Guy Smith	Chris Dyson
7	LMP1	Toyota GAZOO Racing	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	Mike Conway	Kamui Kobayashi	Jose Maria Lopez
8	LMP1	Toyota GAZOO Racing	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	Sebastien Buemi	Kazuki Nakajima	Brendon Hartley
11	LMP2	Eurointernational	Ligier JS P217-Gibson	Adrien Tambay	TBA	TBA
21	LMP2	DragonSpeed USA	Oreca 07-Gibson	Memo Rojas	Pipo Derani	Ryan Cullen
22	LMP2	United Autosports	Oreca 07-Gibson	Phil Hanson	Filipe Albuquerque	Paul di Resta
24	LMP2	Nielsen Racing	Oreca 07-Gibson	Colin Noble	TBA	TBA
25	LMP2	Algarve Pro Racing	Oreca 07-Gibson	John Falb	Simon Trummer	TBA
26	LMP2	G-Drive Racing	Aurus 01-Gibson	Roman Rusinov	TBA	TBA
28	LMP2	IDEC Sport	Oreca 07-Gibson	Paul Lafargue	Paul-Loup Chatin	Richard Bradley
29	LMP2	Racing Team Nederland	Oreca 07-Gibson	Giedo van der Garde	Nyck de Vries	Frits van Eerd
30	LMP2	Duqueine Engineering	Oreca 07-Gibson	Tristan Gommendy	Jonathan Hirschi	Konstantin Tereshchenko
31	LMP2	Panis Racing	Ligier JS P217-Gibson	Julien Canal	Nico Jamin	TBA
32	LMP2	United Autosports	Oreca 07-Gibson	Alex Brundle	Will Owen	Job van Uitert
33	LMP2	High Class Racing	Oreca 07-Gibson	Kenta Yamashita	Mark Patterson	Anders Fjordbach
34	LMP2	Inter Europol Competition	Ligier JS P217-Gibson	Jakub Smiechowski	Rene Binder	TBA
35	LMP2	Eurasia Motorsport	Ligier JS P217-Gibson	Shane van Gisbergen	Danial Gaunt	Nobuya Yamanaka
36	LMP2	Signatech Alpine Elf	Alpine A470-Gibson	Pierre Ragues	Andre Negrao	Thomas Laurent
37	LMP2	Jackie Chan DC Racing	Oreca 07-Gibson	Roberto Gonzalez	Antonio Felix da Costa	Anthony Davidson
38	LMP2	JOTA	Oreca 07-Gibson	Ho-Pin Tung	Gabriel Aubry	Will Stevens
39	LMP2	Graff	Oreca 07-Gibson	James Allen	Vincent Capillaire	Vincent Capillaire
42	LMP2	Cool Racing	Oreca 07-Gibson	Nicolas Lapierre	Antonin Borga	Alexandre Coigny
43	LMP2	Thunderhead Carlin Racing	Dallara P217-Gibson	Jack Manchester	Ben Barnicoat	TBA
47	LMP2	Cetilar Racing	Dallara P217-Gibson	Roberto Lacorte	Giorgio Sernagiotto	Andrea Belicchi
48	LMP2	Performance Tech	Oreca 07-Gibson	Cameron Cassels	TBA	TBA
49	LMP2	Rick Ware Racing	Riley Mk30-Gibson	Cody Ware	TBA	TBA
50	LMP2	Richard Mille Racing Alpine	Alpine A470-Gibson	Katherine Legge	Sophia Floersch	Tatiana Calderon
84	LMP2	Association SRT41	Oreca 07-Gibson	Takuma Aoki	Snoussi Ben Moussa	Nigel Bailly
51	LM GTE Pro	AF Corse	Ferrari 488 GTE Evo	James Calado	Alessandro Pier Guidi	Daniel Serra
63	LM GTE Pro	Corvette Racing	Corvette C8.R	Jordan Taylor	Antonio Garcia	Nicky Catsburg
64	LM GTE Pro	Corvette Racing	Corvette C8.R	Oliver Gavin	Tommy Milner	Marcel Fassler
71	LM GTE Pro	AF Core	Ferrari 488 GTE Evo	Davide Rigon	Miguel Molina	Sam Bird
89	LM GTE Pro	Risi Competizione	Ferrari 488 GTE Evo	Sebastien Bourdais	Olivier Pla	TBA
91	LM GTE Pro	Porsche GT Team	Porsche 911 RSR-19	Gianmaria Bruni	Richard Lietz	Frederic Makowiecki
92	LM GTE Pro	Porsche GT Team	Porsche 911 RSR-19	Michael Christensen	Kevin Estre	Laurens Vanthoor
93	LM GTE Pro	Porsche GT Team	Porsche 911 RSR-19	Nick Tandy	Earl Bamber	Matt Campbell
94	LM GTE Pro	Porsche GT Team	Porsche 911 RSR-19	Patrick Pilet	Mathieu Jaminet	Julien Andlauer
95	LM GTE Pro	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin Vantage	Nicki Thiim	Marco Sorensen	Richard Westbrook
97	LM GTE Pro	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin Vantage	Alex Lynn	Maxime Martin	Harry Tincknell
52	LM GTE Am	AF Corse	Ferrari 488 GTE Evo	Christoph Ulrich	Steffen Gorig	Alexander West
54	LM GTE Am	AF Corse	Ferrari 488 GTE Evo	Giancarlo Fisichella	Francesco Castellacci	Thomas Flohr
56	LM GTE Am	Team Project 1	Porsche 911 RSR	Laurents Horr	Matteo Cairoli	Egidio Perfetti
57	LM GTE Am	Team Project 1	Porsche 911 RSR	Ben Keating	Jeroen Bleekemolen	Felipe Fraga
61	LM GTE Am	Luzich Racing	Ferrari 488 GTE Evo	Francesco Piovanetti	TBA	TBA
62	LM GTE Am	Red River Sport	Ferrari 488 GTE Evo	Johnny Mowlem	Bonamy Grimes	Charlie Hollings
65	LM GTE Am	WeatherTech Racing	Ferrari 488 GTE Evo	Cooper MacNeil	TBA	TBA
70	LM GTE Am	MR Racing	Ferrari 488 GTE Evo	Motoaki Ishikawa	Olivier Beretta	Kei Cozzolino
74	LM GTE Am	Kessel Racing	Ferrari 488 GTE Evo	Nicola Cadei	TBA	TBA
77	LM GTE Am	Dempsey-Proton Racing	Porsche 911 RSR	Christian Ried	Riccardo Pera	TBA
80	LM GTE Am	HubAuto Corsa	Ferrari 488 GTE Evo	Morris Chen	Tim Slade	Marcos Gomes
81	LM GTE Am	GEAR Racing	Ferrari 488 GTE Evo	Christina Nielsen	TBA	TBA
83	LM GTE Am	AF Corse	Ferrari 488 GTE Evo	Francois Perrodo	Emmanuel Collard	Nicklas Nielsen
85	LM GTE Am	Iron Lynx	Ferrari 488 GTE Evo	Rahel Frey	Manuela Gostner	Michelle Gatting
86	LM GTE Am	Gulf Racing	Porsche 911 RSR	Michael Wainwright	Ben Barker	Andrew Watson
87	LM GTE Am	JMW Motorsport	Ferrari 488 GTE Evo	Richard Heistand	TBA	TBA
88	LM GTE Am	Dempsey-Proton Racing	Porsche 911 RSR	Thomas Preining	TBA	TBA
90	LM GTE Am	TF Sport	Aston Martin Vantage	Salih Yoluc	Charlie Eastwood	Jonathan Adam
98	LM GTE Am	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin Vantage	Paul Dalla Lana	Darren Turner	Ross Gunn
99	LM GTE Am	Dempsey-Proton Racing	Porsche 911 RSR	Pat Long	TBA	TBA

Reserve Entry List (Priority Order)

No.	Class	Team	Car	Driver 1	Driver 2	Driver 3
55	LM GTE Am	Spirit of Race	Ferrari 488 GTE Evo	Duncan Cameron	Matt Griffin	Aaron Scott
4	LMP1	ByKolles Racing Team	ENSO CLM P1/01-Gibson	Tom Dillmann	TBA	TBA
17	LMP2	IDEC Sport	Oreca 07-Gibson	Patrice Lafargue	TBA	TBA
20	LMP2	High Class Racing	Oreca 07-Gibson	Jan Magnussen	TBA	TBA
78	LM GTE Am	Proton Competition	Porsche 911 RSR	Dennis Olsen	TBA	TBA
27	LMP2	DragonSpeed USA	Oreca 07-Gibson	Ben Hanley	Henrik Hedman	Felix Rosenqvist
60	LM GTE Am	Iron Lynx	Ferrari 488 GTE Evo	Sergio Pianezzola	Andrea Piccini	Claudio Schiavoni
23	LMP2	Inter Europol Competition	Ligier JS P217-Gibson	Nigel Moore	TBA	TBA
89	LM GTE Am	Team Project 1	Porsche 911 RSR	David Kolkmann	TBA	TBA
96	LM GTE Am	D’station Racing	Aston Martin Vantage	Tomonobu Fujii	Satoshi Hoshino	TBA