June 11, 2026, will remain an important date in the history of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. A liquid hydrogen prototype, the Toyota TR LH2 Racing Prototype, completed a demonstration lap on the legendary circuit. This marks a significant milestone in the ACO’s commitment to the energy transition.

Innovations

MissionH24

A three-way fight is about to come to the boil as Alpine, BMW and Cadillac prepare to go toe-to-toe in Hyperpole this evening, after commanding the final daylight Free Practice session at Le Mans. The #36 Alpine, both BMW MTeam WRT machines and both Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA cars ended the session at the sharp end of the order.

The final Free Practice session in daylight &ndash; can you believe we&#39;re already at that stage of the week? One last chance to see the track at speed before Sunday&#39;s warm-up. Sixty-two cars, 62 dreams. Three hours on the clock to complete the learning process at Circuit de la Sarthe as the countdown to the 24 Hours of Le Mans continues.

<h2>BMW M Team WRT spoil the cadillac party</h2>

Setting the first benchmark were the winners of the 2023 Centenary event &ndash; the #51 Ferrari 499P in the capable hands of Antonio Giovinazzi. The Prancing Horse has had a quiet week so far, but in Free Practice 3 it reminded the opposition it was still there, posting an early 3:24.598 straight out of the box.

Cadillac has been a major threat all week, with all three of its Michigan machines featuring near the top of the timing screens. The #101 Wayne Taylor Racing entry, driven by Filipe Albuquerque, briefly went quickest before the gold Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA car of Will Stevens surged to the top with a 3:24.058.

Those positions remained unchanged until the final 12 minutes. After a brief red-flag period, a flurry of green sectors lit up for the #38 Cadillac as Earl Bamber joined the fray, putting his golden arrow into second place to make it a Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA one-two and a one-two-three for the all-conquering Cadillac contingent.

BMW would spoil that all-American party in the dying moments of the afternoon spectacle, throwing caution to the wind with both of its M Hybrid V8s. The Bavarian marque charged into second and third, before Belgian ace Dries Vanthoor, at the wheel of the #15 machine, claimed the FP3 honours ahead of the #36 Alpine A424 of Victor Martins and early pace-setter Will Stevens in the Cadillac.

&nbsp;

<h2>FROM Genesis to&nbsp;Revelation</h2>

Genesis has been one of the revelations of every session, steadily moving the pace of the GMR-001 Hypercar towards the sharp end of the field day after day. As the newest car on the 2026 grid, the South Korean marque held fourth for much of the three-hour session, with Paul-Loup Chatin in the #19 leading the charge. The brand-new Hypercar would eventually end up fifth on the leaderboard and is an outside shot of a front-row here in France.

Both Genesis cars have made it into this evening&#39;s Hyperpole 1 shootout, and it will be fascinating to see just how far they can progress.

Team Principal Cyril Abiteboul has been quoted in the press this week as saying that speed will not be a problem. However, the biggest hurdle facing the GMR-001 Hypercar will be reliability over the full 24 hours, with this session proving particularly important for completing race-run simulations.

&nbsp;

<h2>LMP2</h2>

In the prototype class, just one thousandth of a second separated the #29 Forestier Racing by Panis car and the #30 Duqueine Team entry after three hours of running. Over a 13.626km lap, it demonstrated just how incredibly close the LMP2 category really is.

During one of the out laps in the opening phase of FP3, the #28 IDEC Sport car took a trip across the gravel, resulting in a return to the garage so the kitty litter could be scooped out of the ORECA before the French team carried out a precautionary check-over.

On the stroke of the first hour, the #44 Proton Competition machine appeared to hit the barriers heavily entering the Porsche Curves, with the rear of the ORECA taking the impact. Yet just seven minutes later, under Slow Zone conditions, the incredible marshals and recovery crews had the Felbermayr-liveried car back on the road.

With 45 minutes remaining, there was a lapse in concentration for Theodor Jensen in the #37 CLX Motorsport car, running wide, kicking up dust and bouncing across the grass on the approach to Tertre Rouge. It was a heart-in-the-mouth moment, but the ORECA eventually made it back onto the circuit much to the relief of the Danish driver.

As FP3 entered its final half-hour, the #222 United Autosports car of Daniel Schneider made contact with the tyre barriers at the Ford Chicane, bringing out a red flag and temporarily halting proceedings. Schneider was unharmed and the car was recovered, but the United mechanics will have some work to do to straighten that ORECA ahead of its next outing.

<h2>LMGT3</h2>

In the opening 20 minutes, you could barely separate the #21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari and the #87 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus. Both set the early pace with identical laps of 3:54.782.

Once Jos&eacute; Mar&iacute;a L&oacute;pez climbed aboard the Lexus, the #87 edged ahead, with the #32 Team WRT BMW squeezing into the vacant gap.

However, the Barrichello name came to the fore in the final hour as Eduardo, son of Rubens, hustled his Heart of Racing Aston Martin to the top of the timesheets ahead of the #32 Team WRT BMW and the #87 Lexus.

<h2>&nbsp;</h2>

FP3 Top 5 Fastest Times:

1. BMW M Hybrid V8 #15 BMW M Team WRT &ndash; Kevin Magnussen / Raffaele Marciello / Dries Vanthoor &ndash; 3:23.302 
2. Alpine A424 #36 Alpine Endurance Team &ndash; Fr&eacute;d&eacute;ric Makowiecki / Jules Gounon / Victor Martins &ndash; 3:23.725 
3. Cadillac V-Series.R #12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA &ndash; Louis Del&eacute;traz / Will Stevens / Norman Nato &ndash; 3:23.816 
4. BMW M Hybrid V8 #20 BMW M Team WRT &ndash; Robin Frijns / Rene Rast / Sheldon van der Linde &ndash; 3:24.162 
5. Genesis GMR-001-Hypercar #17 Genesis Magma Racing &ndash; Andr&eacute; Lotterer / Luis Felipe Derani / Mathys Jaubert &ndash; 3:24.195

Top Times in LMP2 and LMGT3

<ul>
	<li>LMP2 : Oreca 07-Gibson #29 Forestier Racing by Panis &ndash; Louis Rousset / Esteban Masson / Oliver Gray &ndash; 3:34.252</li>
	<li>LMGT3 : Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3 #23 Heart Of Racing &ndash; Gray Newell / Eduardo Barrichello / Jonny Adam &ndash; 3:53.728</li>
</ul>

&gt;&gt;&gt; <a href="http://www.24h-lemans.com/fr/resultats/2026">Free Practice 3 Results </a>&lt;&lt;&lt; 
&nbsp;

All eyes on Alpine, BMW and Cadillac heading into Hyperpole

Since 2018, with the launch of the MissionH24 program, a collaboration between the ACO and H24Project, the deployment of hydrogen in racing has been one of the priorities of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in its quest for a zero CO2 emissions&nbsp;race.&nbsp; 
 
Many milestones have already been reached: testing of prototypes using gaseous hydrogen, construction of a gaseous hydrogen station, drafting of standards, establishment of safety rules... 
 
For the future hydrogen prototype category, hydrogen stored in liquid form (which is denser) has been selected by the FIA. It will be able to power prototypes using fuel cells or combustion engines.&nbsp; 
 
On Thursday, June 11, 2026, the first liquid hydrogen prototype took the track at Le Mans. The <a href="https://www.24h-lemans.com/fr/actualites/une-premiere-en-piste-avec-le-toyota-tr-lh2-racing-prototype-60668" target="_blank">Toyota TR LH2 Racing Prototype</a>, driven by Kazuki Nakajima. Spectators as well as numerous observers followed this special lap.&nbsp; 
 
The Alpine Alpenglow, driven by David Praschl, also on the track this Thursday, will attempt to set a track record on Saturday at over 313 km/h. 
 
Hydrogen is thus proving its potential and reliability, and demonstrating that zero CO2 emissions racing is possible.

A first for liquid hydrogen at Le Mans!

More or less discretely, Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Mistral and other AI software is gradually becoming inevitable.  It’s everywhere. All the time. Teams entered for the 2026 24 Hours of Le Mans already depend on the staggering abilities of the technology.

It&rsquo;s the modern-day Swiss Army knife. Like an infinite version of the famous do-it-all tool, artificial intelligence is changing everything, developing exponentially and affecting all fields. We can&rsquo;t do without it.

The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.24h-lemans.com/en/news/2026-24-hours-of-le-mans-the-low-down-on-the-genesis-magma-racing-hypercar-60714" target="_blank">Genesis GMR-001</a> is the only newcomer to the Hypercar class this year. How much of its design was achieved thanks to artificial intelligence: 5% or closer to 50%? A small part, according to Fran&ccedil;ois-Xavier Demaison, technical director of the Korean team:&nbsp;&ldquo;It&rsquo;s difficult to apply to aerodynamics at this level of endurance racing, but that&rsquo;s one of the aspects we need to develop. We use it in rallying, so we&rsquo;ll use it in endurance, for sure.&rdquo; The Frenchman is evasive when it comes to citing the obstacles to using AI. To analyse data, you have to feed the data to the tool. And that throws up a confidentiality issue, which, as things stand, is a stumbling block as far as many 24 Hours of Le Mans teams are concerned. TDS Racing #14 Oreca 07 (LMP2) track engineer Arthur Trouttet: &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t use it enough, to be honest. But we are starting to. For the moment, our team has nothing that&rsquo;s directly linked to and AI tool. But we use it in the preparation phase.&rdquo;

Five-time winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Toyota applies AI in its endurance programme. David Floury, Toyota Racing technical director: &ldquo;We use the platforms that exist, but we also have the internal capabilities and a whole department dedicated to artificial intelligence.&nbsp;Development has been exponential in the past four or five years. First of all, we use it to transcribe our meetings, which are always multilingual at Toyota. It&rsquo;s essential, because there are always attendees from Japan, Europe and the rest of the world. That&rsquo;s the first aspect, but the growth on technical aspects is fast too.&rdquo;

<h2>Will artificial intelligence be able to design a Hypercar from A to Z? Without a doubt. But when?</h2>

&ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t tried yet, so I can&rsquo;t say. On the other hand, I can tell you that when you ask AI to analyse a rulebook, its ability to summarise the sporting and technical rules is quite surprising. We haven&rsquo;t reached the point where we design a car with AI only, but I think it could happen in the future.&rdquo; To what degree does the new TR010 Hybrid benefit from artificial intelligence? We don&rsquo;t know. But one thing is for sure, all racing cars have an element of AI in them.

Once the car is on the track, AI proves essential again. &ldquo;We use it to analyse large volumes of data quickly. We don&rsquo;t totally base our decisions on it yet. However, it helps with strategy and tactics thanks to its analytical abilities.&rdquo;

So, what do we have to look forward to in years to come? &ldquo;On every level, in design, car development, operations and strategy, it will continue to expand, to be omnipresent,&rdquo; concludes David Floury.

Is Artificial Intelligence already an essential factor in winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans?

From 2027, Goodyear Eagle tire delivers new level of performance and the highest level of sustainable materials content in endurance racing.

Goodyear has announced a multi-year extension of its partnership with the FIA and the Automobile Club de l&rsquo;Ouest (ACO), confirming its role as the exclusive tire supplier for the LMGT3 category in the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) through 2029. The agreement reinforces Goodyear&rsquo;s long-term commitment to endurance racing at the highest level. Goodyear was selected at the end of a tender evaluation that considered a range of criteria, including tire performance across varying track and weather conditions, safety, sustainability, cost, the manufacturer&#39;s experience in supplying tires for LMGT3 competition, and the level of technical and operational support provided to teams.

As part of this continued partnership, Goodyear will introduce a new generation of Goodyear Racing Eagle tire specifications for the LMGT3 class in both the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) and European Le Mans Series (ELMS) from 2027, further strengthening its focus on innovation in top-level endurance racing. This next step reinforces Goodyear&rsquo;s leadership in bringing sustainable materials into real-world competition, translating innovation into tangible performance on track. With a clear pathway to scalability and industrialization, Goodyear is ensuring that advancements developed in racing can be credibly transferred beyond the track. Backed by a robust and forward-looking development roadmap Goodyear continues to set the benchmark for the future of endurance racing. 
 
&ldquo;This extension reinforces Goodyear&rsquo;s long-term commitment to endurance racing as a platform for innovation&rdquo;, said Xavier Fraipont, Goodyear Racing Vice-President. With the next generation of Eagle tires from 2027, we are not only raising the bar in performance but also accelerating our journey to have tires with higher levels of sustainable-material content in top-tier competition&rdquo;. 
 
&ldquo;Goodyear has played an important role in the success and development of the LMGT3 category since its introduction in the FIA World Endurance Championship. Extending this partnership through 2029 reflects a shared ambition between the FIA, the ACO and Goodyear: to ensure strong sporting consistency while continuing to drive innovation. The introduction of a new generation of tires from 2027, combining high-level performance with increased sustainable material content, perfectly illustrates the direction endurance racing must continue to take &mdash; where technological excellence and responsibility go hand in hand.&rdquo; 
Pierre Fillon, President of the Automobile Club de l&#39;Ouest

The refreshed range will continue Goodyear&rsquo;s current single-specification philosophy, with one Goodyear Racing Eagle Medium slick and one Wet tire developed around three key priorities: instant confidence, a wide operating window and an enhanced range of sustainable materials. 
 
Both the slick and wet compounds will contain 66% sustainable materials[1], making them the tires with highest sustainable content in top-level endurance racing and establishing Goodyear as a global leader in sustainable motorsport tire technology. 
 
The new compounds combine recycled and bio-based materials1 including recycled steel, rice husk silica, recycled zinc oxide, and ISCC-certified polymers and carbon black, with bio-based processing aids and sustainable natural rubber. The tires will also debut newly designed Eagle-branded sidewalls, bringing Goodyear&rsquo;s unmistakable Eagle performance identity even more prominently to the track. 
Goodyear has enjoyed three triumphant seasons since the LMGT3 category was introduced in 2024, with its current Goodyear Racing Eagle products becoming renowned for their performance, consistency and broad operating window across changing conditions. 
 
&ldquo;Developing a tire capable of performing across vastly different circuits, supporting front-, mid-, and rear-engined cars, and meeting the demands of both professional and amateur drivers, is no small feat,&rdquo; said Fraipont. 
 
&ldquo;Since the category launched in 2024, we have continuously developed the Goodyear Racing Eagle products using feedback from drivers, teams and manufacturers competing at the highest level of endurance racing. These new specifications are the result of an extensive development process, allowing us to continue delivering world-class performance and consistency while proving that sustainable innovation and elite endurance performance can go hand in hand,&rdquo; added Fraipont.

<h2>Where Performance Meets Its Next Frontier</h2>

That philosophy remained central throughout the development process, with Goodyear pushing the boundaries of performance while delivering a tire that inspires confidence from the very first lap, adapts seamlessly to evolving track and weather conditions, and enables teams to execute more dynamic race strategies. 
 
Fraipont added: &ldquo;At Spa this year, we witnessed the fastest LMGT3 race ever recorded at the circuit. At Le Mans, we expect some teams to complete up to four stints (around 600 km) on a single set of tires. This highlights the remarkable breadth and consistency of performance we are now delivering. 
 
&ldquo;With this new generation of Goodyear Racing Eagle tires, we continue to advance performance at the highest level. While speed is part of our DNA, endurance racing demands a broader capability combining durability, consistency and adaptability. This is where our focus is fully directed. But this milestone is only one step in a much longer journey. We are already challenging ourselves to go further and move faster. This is not about reaching a specific percentage. It is about redefining what high-performance racing should look like in a more responsible era. Goodyear is already developing the future of Eagle tires with 80% sustainable material-content, which we intend to showcase on track later this year. 
 
&ldquo;More than a technological achievement, this represents a clear statement of intent: demonstrating that sustainability and uncompromising performance can progress together - and that Goodyear is ready to lead this transformation alongside its partners&rdquo; concluded Fraipont. 
&nbsp; 
[1] Goodyear definition of sustainable materials: a bio-based (originating from biological sources); renewable (composed of replenishable biomass); or recycled (reprocessed from reclaimed materials) material as defined in ISO 14021; or one produced using or contributing to other practices designed to promote resource conservation and/or emissions reductions.

A first for liquid hydrogen at Le Mans!

Related News

All eyes on Alpine, BMW and Cadillac heading into Hyperpole

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FIA, ACO and Goodyear drive the future of LMGT3 through 2029

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