F1 News
These former F1 drivers will be racing at Le Mans in 2024
The 24 hours of Le Mans is one-third of the motorsport triple crown, along with the Monaco Grand Prix and the Indianapolis 500. This year is the 92nd running of the historic event and features 62 cars and 118 drivers, 18 of which previously drove in Formula 1. The race will start at 15:00 GMT on Saturday, June 15th.
Who are the 18 former F1 drivers?
Le Mans is split into three classes: Hypercar, LMP2 and LMGT3. All 18 of the former F1 drivers will be competing in hypercars, the top class out of the three.
The most notable of the former F1 drivers competing at this year's running of the historic event is 2009 world champion Jenson Button. Button competed at last year's event in a modified NASCAR, but chose to take a full-time seat in 2024 at Hertz Team Jota. Joining Button on the Le Mans grid are Nyck De Vries, Romain Grosjean, Mick Schumacher and Antonio Giovanzzi, who won the 2023 race in a Ferrari - AF Corse and will compete in the event again with the same team. Schumacher is racing for the Alpine Endurance Team for the course of the 2024 World Endurance Championship, whilst Grosjean is a one-off entry into the championship just for this race with the Lamborghini team.
De Vries will race in the #7 Toyota alongside another former F1 driver, Kamui Kobayashi. In the other Toyota car are Sebastian Buemi and Brendan Hartley, who both previously drove for Toro Rosso in F1. Also competing in this year's Le Mans are Will Stevens, Sebastian Bourdais, Felipe Nasr, Andre Lotterer, Daniil Kvyat, Robert Kubica, Jean-Eric Vergne, Stoffel Vandoorne, Paul di Resta and Jack Aitken.
Who else is competing in the event?
Also competing at this year's 24 hours of Le Mans in the Hypercar class are Scott Dixon (7-time IndyCar champion), Alex Palou (2-time IndyCar champion), Robert Shwartzman (Ferrari reserve driver), Callum Ilott (2020 F2 runner-up and competed at the Indy500 with Arrow McLaren) and Felipe Drugovich (Aston Martin reserve driver). Mercedes reserve driver Frederik Vesti and current F2 drivers Ritomo Miyata and Clement Novalak will be racing in the LMP2 class. In the LMGT3 class, Marino Sato (who drove in the 2020 Young Driver test in Abu Dhabi for Alpha Tauri alongside Yuki Tsunoda) will be racing for United Autosports - a team co-founded and co-owned by McLaren CEO Zak Brown. Competing in the same class are former F3 driver Gregoire Saucy and 7-time MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi.