by H. Mayor – photo: lemans.org

Le Mans is one of the highlights of the motor sports calendar, capturing everyone’s attention year after year. The French city of the same name hosts every year this historic and one of the most challenging sporting competitions in the world: the 24 Hours. A whole day’s race, with no breaks, at the La Sarthe circuit which pushes to the limit the endurance capabilities of both vehicles and drivers. This Saturday at 15.00 will mark the start of the 24 Hours and here we tell you about some of its key facts and curiosities:

Why 24 hours?

The first edition of this race took place in 1923. According to existing records, Georges Durand (funder of the organising club) had initially devised an eight hour endurance  race, half of them during the night, but someone told him; -And why not 24 hours? and the rest is history…

More than 5.000 kilometres

The 24 hours always (besides exceptional occasions)  takes place in June at the La Sarthe motor circuit which runs for 13 kilometres and comprises both private sections of track in addition to public roads. The circuit has suffered a number of variations over the years. There are on average 50 vehicles competing every year at Le Mans and the goal is to cover the greatest possible distance in 24 hours. This has changed significantly over time; whereas the first edition’s winners, Lagache and Leonard, covered 2.209 kilometres, on the latest editions winners easily go over the 5.000 kilometres.

Help

Each vehicle is driven by a three-man team of drivers that take turns of no more than 4 consecutive hours each. During all of the race’s history there is only one instance in which a pilot has completed the 24 hours single handedly: Eddie Hall, whom in 1950 covered a continuous distance of over 3.200 kilometres and finished in eighth position.

Main names

Talking about the 24 Hours today is talking about Porsche and Toyota. Both brands are the unrivalled contestants to the title, even more so after Audi’s withdrawal a few months back. The Japanese Kamuni Kobayashi has made history in the past few days after achieving the fastest ever lap to the current layout of the circuit of La Sarthe in 3 minutes, 14 seconds and 781 milliseconds, breaking defendant Neel Jani’s 2015 own record. The best lap of Le Mans’ history is the 3:13:90 by Pedro Rodríguez in 1971.

Main players 

Drivers from across the globe get together each year at Le Mans, amongst them many well known names of the motor sports world such as Nelsinho Piquet, Rubens Barrichello or Nicolas Senna. Toyota is this years favourite in LMP1 with ex F1 drivers Sebastien Buemi, Anthony Davidson or the renowned Kobayashi.