Although June is still really far away, the sixty cars that will be part of the 2019 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans are already confirmed, as well a respectable list of 10 reserve entries, as the invitations from the Asian Le Mans Series completed the list, as well some IMSA factory GT teams.
This year’s edition is the first that will act as the FIA World Endurance Championship season finale, with the competition completing its transition to a winter calendar, and this will be the norm from 2019/2020, so obviously the race will be treated differently compared to when Le Mans was in the middle of it.
The changes in the list compared to 2018 are mostly in the Pro-Am part of the grid, especially in the LMGTE-Am class, which put the GT car count above the LMP car count if we don’t put the ten reserve entries in the list.
The LMP1 class counts with most of the cars that were in France in 2018, with the only void being the pair of Ginetta G60-LTP1 cars, mostly due to their own troubled partnership with CEFC Manor, which makes for a count of eight cars.
The list gets substantially bigger when looking at the LMP2 class, in what was one of the toughest selections to make, given the strength of the grid in this class particularly. The 2018 polesitter and winner are in the list, though unlike Signatech Alpine, IDEC Sport was a late addition to the list thanks to their Asian LMS participation.
United Autosports comes as a powerful late addition, ready to take on the likes of G-Drive Racing, TDS Racing, Dragonspeed and the double campaign by Jackie Chan DC Racing. Another thing to take into account if that will be essentially a battle between Oreca 07s and Ligier JS P217s as the small Dallara P217 presence will be in form of Cetillar Villorba Corse and Racing Team Nederland. All of this gives us a total of 17 cars in the class.
The LMGTE-Pro class also doesn’t have that much changes too, with Porsche and Ford combining their FIA WEC and IMSA teams as they bring four cars each again. For Ford Chip Ganassi, this will be the last hurrah for the Ford GTE as a factory program, with the confirmation that this will come to an end after the 2019 WeatherTech Sportscar season.
The rest of the field is coming with pair of cars as usual from AF Corse, Aston Martin, BMW MTEK and Corvette Racing. Coming as the David between the factory Goliaths will be Risi Competizione with a single Ferrari 488 GTE Evo, in what seems to be one of their few runs in the season in GTE machinery. This class has the same 17 entries as the LMP2.
The LMGTE-Am class had the most growth, and this came with some quality in the field. Dempsey-Proton will appear with a three car fleet thanks to a partnership with D’Station Racing, with an extra being run only by Proton. Spirit of Race and Kessel Racing join the multi-car band, with Kessel featuring an all-female lineup, a trend seen in IMSA and in the Asian Le Mans Series, with this particular entry being pushed by the FIA Women in Motorsport initiative since the Abu Dhabi 12 Hours.
With the absolute majority of the customer racing base, Porsche and Ferrari bring the biggest numbers in the class, while Aston Martin comes with Paul Dalla Lana and TF Sport in the last Le Mans race for the old V8-powered Vantage GTE, and Keating Motorsports will bring the Ford GTE to the LMGTE-Am for the first time ever since the introduction of the new GTE regulations, and the combination of everything brings us to a grid of 18 cars.
Finally, in the sidelines we have ten reserve entries waiting for any teams to pull out of the 60-car grid, though being left aside brought some angry faces to the members in these teams, with United Autosports having their second Ligier there and the Meyer Shank Racing one-off entry being sidelined too, which made the pull out of their project since they are the ninth entry in the list, so possibilities of aligning a car in June are almost null.
Pierre Fillion, president of ACO, explained that during the selection process they wanted a diverse field, giving priority to those who are faithful to Le Mans but also trying to have the most different teams as possible, which justifies the number of second cars in the reserve list.
The 2019 24 Hours of Le Mans will be held on June 15th and 16th, and as many teams still have to complete their lineups and adjust more details, more info will come until near the race day.
PHOTOS: FIA WEC
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