Toyota reclaim crown to reignite Le Mans 24 Hours love affair with race in rude health

Conway, Kobayashi and De Vries added to team’s success, in front of more than 350,000 fans, to go alongside five victories between 2018 and 2022

As the fans walked away understandably a little wearily from the 94th edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours, they had surely earned a sit down in a shady spot and a cold drink or two. Tired but happy, then, after a vingt-quatre that demonstrated the event and the series of which it is part are in rude health.

After the twice-round-the-clock challenge in baking sunshine and through the night with nary a spot of rain, it was the No 7 Toyota TR010 of Britain’s Mike Conway, Japan’s Kamui Kobayashi and the Dutch driver Nyck de Vries who took the flag after 381 laps, just 11 seconds up the road from the chasing BMW. It was a first victory for De Vries and a second for Conway and Kobayashi. There were tears from the Japanese driver in the cockpit as he brought the Toyota home. “I need a beer,” he told the team. He had earned it.

The race had not been the most dramatic but it had been close, tense and enormously hard-fought. Such is the engineering reliability and performance of the current cars it is a relentless flat-out sprint. The tortoise is no longer in this fight and the hares cannot afford to have so much as a whisker out of place. After 20 hours of running the top three were but seven seconds apart and their relentless chase was pursued to the flag.

For Toyota this was further success to go alongside their five consecutive victories between 2018 and 2022 at the meeting every team wants to win more than any other. Le Mans is special and it commands a devotion among competitors and fans alike.

At the Circuit de la Sarthe this was evident more so than ever: 350,105 were in attendance this year, of which it is estimated as many as 120,000 were from the UK. The 8.47-mile track and its environs were heaving. Some may mourn that it is a far more corporate and slick affair than it used to be but, like Formula One, Le Mans is adapting to the times and a new, younger audience and it is proving more popular, year in, year out. Not that this is something that should be taken as a given, as other motorsport series are more than aware.

For drivers too it remains the unmissable meeting, not least because it is so fiercely competitive across every class. This year’s GT3 category was won, after another ding-dong battle, by the TF Sport Corvette of Britain’s Jonny Edgar, the Dutch driver Nicky Catsburg and their amateur driver, Ben Keating from the US.

Keating declared it: “The most competitive race I have ever seen,” having shown no little commitment to taking part. Just nine weeks ago he had undergone surgery to deal with an elbow injury he suffered in a bike accident.

“The doctor said: ‘There’s no way you’ll be ready.’ On Monday [before the race], he said: ‘Ah, you’re not going to hurt it. You can race,’” Keating revealed. He admitted it did not feel comfortable and the stitches were still visible on his elbow. Yet race on he did and win, such is the attraction of the 24. Such stories are part of why it has such a rich history and why it is held in such high regard by fans.

The race is part of the World Endurance Championship and both now boast a similarly enthusiastic appeal to manufacturers. For the first time in a decade, next year’s WEC series will consist of nine rounds including a long-awaited return to Silverstone in April.

That will likely be of even greater appeal given that in 2027 McLaren will be competing in the top – Hypercar – class of sportscar racing for the first time since 1998, looking to add to the team’s only Le Mans win, with the McLaren F1 GTR in 1995. Indeed, McLaren’s CEO, Zak Brown, an avid fan of sportscar racing, had opted to attend Le Mans this year rather than take his usual place on the pit wall at the Barcelona-Catalunya GP.

He was wearing the McLaren Hypercar team top and was greeted with enormous enthusiasm on the grid, signing the hats of a swathe of marshals with something of the panache of a rock star. McLaren’s popularity with the new younger motorsport audience is likely to swell further the popularity of Le Mans and the WEC.

Ford too will join the Hypercar ranks in 2027, in an effort to win their first outright victory at the race since the glory days of the GT40 with which they last won the race in 1969 and perhaps reignite their rivalry with Ferrari that defined Le Mans in the 1960s.

Those three teams will join a lineup in the top class that will also include Aston Martin, BMW, Cadillac, Peugeot, Toyota and Genesis (Hyundai’s luxury car brand, who made a good showing on their debut this year), a grid that might have been considered fanciful as little as a decade ago. With the sun setting in La Sarthe on another glorious year, for many Le Mans 2027 cannot come soon enough.