70 Fun Facts About 24 Hours of Le Mans

For most of the year, long stretches of the Le Mans 24 Hours circuit serve as what?

Public roads: the circuit's longest straight is an ordinary highway, so safety barriers go up every year for the race and traffic is let back on almost as soon as it is over.

Why did Le Mans 1923 end an hour later than it began?

Clocks changed during the very first Le Mans: France moved to summer time at 11 pm on race night, so 24 hours of racing ended an hour later in the day. It is also the only Le Mans ever run in May.

Which organisation runs the 24 Hours of Le Mans?

The Automobile Club de l'Ouest began in 1906 as the local motor club that laid out the course for what became known as the first Grand Prix, held near Le Mans; 17 years later it launched its 24-hour race.

How is the overall winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans decided?

Greatest distance when the 24 hours are up wins, yet the first race crowned no official winner: its trophy was to be decided over three consecutive years, a plan that was soon dropped.

On which track is the 24 Hours of Le Mans held?

The Circuit de la Sarthe once ran into the streets of Le Mans itself; by 1932 the city had been bypassed completely, which cut almost four kilometres from the lap.

Le Mans' long straight, the Ligne Droite des Hunaudières, is known in English by the name of which village?

Mulsanne is the village where the straight ends, so English speakers borrowed its name; the French name comes from Les Hunaudières, a hamlet half-way along it.

Which two races join Le Mans in motorsport's informal Triple Crown?

Monaco Grand Prix and Indianapolis 500 is today's popular version; the earliest one counts the Formula One world title in place of Monaco, and the Le Mans organisers' own history of the race describes the crown that way.

Which driver completed motorsport's Triple Crown by winning Le Mans in 1972?

Graham Hill won in a French Matra to finish a set no other driver had completed; a late starter, he had not even passed his driving test until he was 24.

Which oil company's light blue and orange colours were on the Ford GT40 that won Le Mans in 1968 and 1969?

Gulf's colours won both years on the very same car, GT40 chassis 1075, yet the Gulf-liveried Porsches that followed and made the colours famous never won Le Mans at all.

Which driver retired in 2014 with a record nine Le Mans wins?

Tom Kristensen won on his Le Mans debut in 1997 after a last-minute call-up, then took six in a row from 2000 to 2005 on the way to nine.

The record nine-time Le Mans winner comes from which country?

Denmark's record-breaker was never beaten to the finish at Le Mans between 1997 and 2005: in nine starts he won seven times, and his car failed to last the distance in the other two.

Calling the traditional Le Mans start unsafe, what did Jacky Ickx do as the 1969 race began?

Walked to his car, then buckled up, set off last and still won. Minutes into the race a driver who had not stopped to fasten his belts was killed, and the running start was scrapped the next year.

Six-time Le Mans winner Jacky Ickx also won which rally in 1983, driving a four-wheel-drive off-roader?

Dakar fell to Ickx with French film star Claude Brasseur as his co-driver, and he tackled the desert marathon 14 times in all.

Since 1971 the Le Mans 24 Hours has begun with what type of start?

Rolling starts came in a year after the traditional Le Mans start was abandoned: in 1970 the drivers began already strapped into their parked cars, and from 1971 the field was released on the move.

Which flag is waved to start the Le Mans 24 Hours?

The French tricolour is waved by an invited guest starter: Hollywood's Brad Pitt did the honours in 2016, and tennis champion Rafael Nadal in 2018.

Le Mans is usually held in which month?

June puts the race right beside the summer solstice, so the drivers face one of the shortest nights of the year, and a little less racing in the dark.

Spanish gamer Lucas Ordóñez reached a Le Mans class podium in 2011 after winning a contest for players of which video game?

Gran Turismo's GT Academy turned its best players into real racing drivers: two years later Ordóñez was back on the class podium, sharing his car with a second academy graduate, Jann Mardenborough.

Which film star co-owned the team that came second at Le Mans in 2017?

Jackie Chan's cars came from the second-tier LMP2 class, yet one of them led the whole race in its closing hours as the factory hybrids hit trouble; he likened the result to winning his Oscar.

Which was one of the three classes that raced at Le Mans in 2025?

Hypercar took over as the top class in 2021, after two of the biggest carmakers had quit and costs had spiralled under the old rules; the cheaper formula soon drew a crowd of major makers back to the race.

Roughly how long is one lap of the Le Mans 24 Hours circuit?

13.6 km makes it one of the longest laps in world motorsport, yet the fastest cars have covered it in less than three and a quarter minutes.

Why were two chicanes added to Le Mans' 6 km main straight in 1990?

A new FIA circuit rule: the governing body would no longer approve any circuit with a straight over 2 km, so the 6 km blast was cut in three, two years after a car was clocked there at 405 km/h.

Which member of Pink Floyd raced at Le Mans five times from 1979?

Nick Mason, the band's drummer, was in the middle of recording The Wall in 1979 when he slipped away to make his Le Mans debut, and he came home second in his class.

Roughly how far did the winning car travel to set the Le Mans distance record in 2010?

5,400 km in a single day: racing cars kept getting quicker, yet nobody had covered more ground than the 1971 winner for 39 years until the 2010 race finally beat it.

Which driver's car flew into the crowd in the 1955 Le Mans disaster, motorsport's deadliest accident?

Pierre Levegh had earned his seat in the German team three years earlier, when he drove nearly 23 hours of the race alone and was leading it until his car failed near the end.

Which country reacted to the 1955 Le Mans disaster with a ban on circuit racing that lasted for decades?

Switzerland banned circuit racing outright, which killed off its own Grand Prix; when a Swiss Grand Prix was next held for the world championship, in 1982, it had to be run across the border at Dijon in France.

Which manufacturer's D-Type, winner from 1955 to 1957, had a vertical fin behind the driver?

Jaguar's designer Malcolm Sayer had spent the war at the Bristol Aeroplane Company, so he shaped the D-Type like an aircraft, tail fin and all; he went on to design the E-Type.

Which innovation, now on almost every car, did the 1953 Le Mans-winning C-Type bring to the race?

Disc brakes, supplied by Dunlop, let the C-Types brake later and harder than their drum-braked rivals, and Le Mans was won at an average of over 100 mph for the first time.

Before he ran Ford's Le Mans team, Carroll Shelby won the race in 1959 for which British marque?

Aston Martin won with Shelby and Roy Salvadori sharing the car; the Texan, a chicken farmer before he took up racing, soon quit driving and started building cars of his own.

What does the '40' in Ford GT40 refer to?

Its height in inches: the car stood barely 40 inches off the ground, so low that the 1967 winner needed a bulge built into its roof to make room for its tall driver, Dan Gurney.

Why did Ken Miles lose Le Mans 1966 to Bruce McLaren after Ford staged a photo finish?

McLaren had started further back, so in the same 24 hours his car had covered slightly more ground; Ford had wanted a dead heat, but the rules had no room for one and Miles was placed second.

Ford's all-American win at Le Mans in 1967 was driven by Dan Gurney and which co-driver?

A. J. Foyt was a Le Mans rookie, yet he and Gurney led from the second hour and set a distance record; it was the only time he ever raced there.

Which podium celebration, now seen across motorsport, did Dan Gurney start at Le Mans in 1967?

Spraying champagne began on impulse: Gurney shook the winner's bottle and soaked everyone within range, and said later he had no idea he was starting a tradition that podiums everywhere would copy.

Which two actors play Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles in the 2019 film Ford v Ferrari?

Matt Damon and Christian Bale took roles that had been in the air for years: Brad Pitt was long tipped to play Shelby. In parts of Europe the film was released as Le Mans '66.

Which Hollywood star played racing driver Michael Delaney in the 1971 film Le Mans?

Steve McQueen's production entered a real car in the 1970 race, loaded with film cameras, to shoot the action from inside the field; filming at the circuit then dragged on until November.

Which car gave Porsche its first overall Le Mans win, in 1970?

Porsche 917: a year earlier the new car had been so unstable at speed that the factory's own drivers chose the older 908 instead, yet it won Le Mans in both 1970 and 1971.

Which 1971 Le Mans winner, blinded in one eye a year later, went on to run Red Bull's young-driver programme?

Helmut Marko's driving career ended at 29 when a stone pierced his visor at the 1972 French Grand Prix; he turned talent-spotter instead and picked Red Bull's young drivers for more than two decades.

The 1991 winner is the only Le Mans-winning car not powered by a piston engine. What did it use?

The 787B's four-rotor R26B made about 700 hp during the race and is remembered for its ear-splitting shriek.

Which Japanese manufacturer won Le Mans overall in 1991, the first from its country to do so?

Mazda's Johnny Herbert drove the final stint to the flag and then missed his own podium: exhausted and dehydrated, he collapsed as he left the car and was taken to the medical centre.

In 1963 Rover and BRM entered an experimental Le Mans car powered by what?

A gas turbine, in effect a small jet engine, carried the car far enough for a top-ten place, but it ran as number 00, outside the official entry list, so its finish was never classified.

Which manufacturer built the first diesel-powered car to win Le Mans, in 2006?

Audi's win came 57 years after the first diesel raced at Le Mans: a home-built French car with an American army truck engine, which stopped short of the finish in 1949 with fuel trouble.

Which car was the first hybrid to win Le Mans, in 2012?

Audi R18 e-tron quattro stored braking energy in a flywheel built by Williams and sent it to the front wheels, but only above 120 km/h: the rules wanted no four-wheel-drive advantage out of slow corners.

Which Formula One world champion won Le Mans in 2018 and 2019?

Fernando Alonso won at his first attempt, squeezing Le Mans into a full Formula One season with McLaren, then came back as a sports car regular a year later and won it again.

Which Formula One driver won Le Mans in 2015 while still racing full-time in F1?

Nico Hülkenberg won Le Mans on his first visit, as a Formula One driver moonlighting for a weekend, yet in Formula One itself he had to wait until 2025 for his first podium finish.

Which manufacturer's leading car lost power in the final minutes of Le Mans 2016, handing Porsche the win?

Toyota's car was more than a minute clear when it lost power on the pit straight, within sight of the flag; its distraught driver got it going again, but a Porsche that had been beaten swept past to win.

What happened for the first time at the start of the 2016 Le Mans 24 Hours?

It started behind the safety car because a downpour before the start had soaked the track, and some fifty minutes of the race ticked away before the field was finally let loose.

Which car won the centenary Le Mans 24 Hours in 2023?

Ferrari 499P: the marque had not built a factory car to chase outright victory at Le Mans for 50 years, yet it won at the first attempt, its first overall win there since 1965.

Which American marque took pole position at Le Mans in 2025, the first American car to do so since 1967?

Cadillac locked out the whole front row with two cars run by the British team Jota, its first ever Le Mans pole, only for both to be overtaken on the opening lap.

Which former Formula One race winner took his first Le Mans victory in 2025?

Robert Kubica won 14 years after a rally crash partly severed his forearm and wrecked a Formula One career that had seemed bound for the very top.

Which American racing series sent a Chevrolet Camaro to Le Mans in 2023 as the experimental 'Garage 56' entry?

NASCAR marked its 75th anniversary by sending a modified stock car, shared by seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson, a Formula One world champion and a past Le Mans winner, to fill the garage kept for cars that test new ideas.

Petit Le Mans, the American endurance race inspired by the 24 Hours, is held at which circuit?

Road Atlanta had gone bankrupt a few years before entrepreneur Don Panoz bought it in 1996; he rebuilt the Georgia track and launched his 1,000-mile, ten-hour race there in 1998.

Why was the 1936 Le Mans 24 Hours cancelled?

A general strike in France, in the wake of the Popular Front's election win, put the race's fuel supply in doubt and forced a postponement, and no new date could be agreed. The only other blank years are the war years, 1940 to 1948.

Which Italian marque won Le Mans four years running from 1931 to 1934?

Alfa Romeo's cars were so strong that private owners raced them too: in 1932 Frenchwoman Odette Siko entered her own and brought it home fourth overall.

Three-time Le Mans winner Woolf Barnato funded his racing with a fortune from which country's mines?

South Africa's diamond fields made his father rich, and Woolf inherited young; he spent the fortune bankrolling the racing team he drove for and ended up as the company's chairman.

In March 1930 Le Mans winner Woolf Barnato famously raced his Speed Six from Cannes against what?

The Blue Train express had not even reached Calais when Barnato pulled up at a London club to win his bet, having driven the length of France overnight and crossed the Channel by boat.

Which British marque, a winner in the 1920s, returned to win overall in 2003 with its Speed 8?

Bentley's win came 73 years after its last, in 1930, and the comeback car was powered by an engine borrowed from a sister marque that had been winning the race for years.

The McLaren F1 GTR won Le Mans on its 1995 debut using an engine from which manufacturer?

BMW's engine powered a road car that its designer never meant to race; through some 17 hours of rain the converted supercar outlasted faster purpose-built prototypes and won at the first attempt.

Which manufacturer quit sportscar racing after its CLR flipped three times at Le Mans 1999?

Mercedes-Benz saw Mark Webber's car take off twice before the race and Peter Dumbreck's somersault into the trees during it; the team pulled its last car out at once, and nobody was badly hurt.

Which French manufacturer won Le Mans in 1992 and 1993?

Peugeot signed off with a one-two-three finish in 1993; its team boss, Jean Todt, left that year to run a Formula One team and went on to become president of the FIA.

Which Frenchman started Le Mans 33 times and won it four times?

Henri Pescarolo was a legend before he ever won: in 1968, when his car's windscreen wipers failed in a night of heavy rain and the team was ready to give up, he jumped in and raced on regardless.

Five-time winner Derek Bell shared a Le Mans car in 1995 with which relative?

His son Justin shared the car with him, and they were leading the race on Sunday morning until trouble selecting gears cost them minutes in the pits; they still finished third, on the podium together.

What do the rules require of a car being refuelled in the Le Mans pits?

Its engine is switched off before the crew may touch the car, a safety rule that keeps a running engine away from the fuel; it also means the car has to restart at every single stop.

Why was the second car home at Le Mans 2016 not classified?

A slow final lap: a finisher then had to complete the last lap within six minutes, a rule written to stop cars parking by the track to wait for the flag, and this one took almost twelve.

What happens on the Friday before the Le Mans 24 Hours?

A parade of the drivers through the town fills the rest day: they ride through the centre of Le Mans perched on vintage cars, throwing gifts to the crowd, and nobody needs a race ticket to watch.

With the 2020 Le Mans postponed by the pandemic, what ran on its original weekend instead?

A 24-hour virtual race put 200 drivers, professional racers and top gamers alike, on simulators around the world; the real race followed three months later with no spectators allowed in.

The short circuit inside the Le Mans 24 Hours track is named after which French car maker?

Bugatti gives its name to the short track that shares the 24 Hours' pits and main straight; Formula One raced there in 1967 and never came back, but it became the home of France's motorcycle Grand Prix.

Which engine layout powered Ferrari's first Le Mans winner, the 2.0-litre 166 MM of 1949?

A V12: the '166' is the size of each tiny cylinder in cubic centimetres, twelve of them adding up to just two litres, and 'MM' honours Italy's Mille Miglia race.

Which Hollywood actor finished second overall at Le Mans in 1979, sharing a Porsche 935?

Paul Newman, then 54, won his class alongside Rolf Stommelen and team owner Dick Barbour; he had caught the racing bug while preparing for his 1969 film Winning.

What braking innovation did the 300 SLR racing car bring to Le Mans in 1955?

An air brake: drivers raised a large light-alloy flap behind the cockpit to spare the 300 SLR's drum brakes and tyres, which had to haul the car down from top speed lap after lap.

Which safety procedure was introduced at Le Mans in 2014 to reduce the need for safety cars?

Slow zones hold cars to a fixed speed through one stretch of the lap while marshals work there, so the rest of the circuit keeps racing instead of being neutralised.

Le Mans, the Daytona 24 Hours and which race make up endurance racing's informal Triple Crown?

The Sebring 12-hour runs on a Second World War airfield where B-17 crews trained; parts of the lap still use the base's original concrete, and the bumps make it a notorious car-breaker.