24h Le Mans
The 90th 24 Hours of Le Mans, third round of the FIA World Endurance Championship starts on Saturday 11 and finishes on Sunday 12 June this year. Today we release the provisional list of drivers who will be competing in the 2022 race. Read on to find out the latest additions to the driver crews.
This year, 186 drivers, in teams of three, will take turns at the wheel for a gruelling 24 hours on the 13.626-km Circuit des 24 Heures. The list includes six women – Lilou Wadoux, Sophia Floersch, Rahel Frey, Michelle Gatling, Sarah Bovy and Katherine Legge – eight-time world rally champion Sébastien Ogier, famous actor Michael Fassbender, several former Le Mans 24 Hours winners, including Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, Romain Dumas, Nick Tandy, and ex-Formula One drivers Giancarlo Fisichella, Esteban Gutierrez, Robert Kubica and Sébastien Bourdais.
Some teams had previously named their drivers but there have been some new additions to complete the full list. Check out the new driver line-ups for the 90th 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The Luxembourg-based team earned its invitation to race after taking the LMP3 title in the 2021 European Le Mans Series. It has now named 30-year-old Alexandre Cougnaud as the third driver alongside Laurent Hörr and Jean Glorieux. This will be the maiden 24 Hours of Le Mans for Cougnaud, who comes from Vendée in the west of France. However, in 2018, he took part in the Test Day with Graff Racing-SO24.
This is the fifth Le Mans campaign for the Portuguese team. Its #47 Oreca will be driven by Sophia Floersch, John Falb and Jack Aitken. Aitken, 26, is the reserve driver for the Williams Formula One team. In 2020, he replaced George Russell to compete in the Grand Prix de Sakhir Grand Prix. This season, he is competing in the European Le Mans Series with Racing Team Turkey. He recently finished sixth at the season-opener, the 4 Hours of Le Castellet.
This British team collected its golden ticket after triumphing in the GT class of the 2022 Asian Le Mans Series. This will be their second 24 Hours of Le Mans. It has entrusted its Ferrari 488 GTE Evo, entered in the LMGTE Am class, to Alexander West, Côme Ledogar (four Le Mans starts) and Marvin Klein. The latter won the Porsche Carrera Cup France last year. In 2018, he competed in a round of the Michelin Le Mans Cup (in Le Castellet) with Cool Racing. He also took part in the Road To Le Mans with the Swiss team the same year.
This mainstay of the LMGTE Am class is fielding three Ferrari 488 GTE Evo this year. We now know that Louis Prette will be teamed with American Conrad Grunewald and French driver Vincent Abril (two Le Mans starts) in the #61 car.
With 12 Le Mans starts to its name, this British team has long been a regular in the LMGTE class at the 24 Hours. At the 90th staging of the race, the #66 Ferrari will be driven by Renger Van der Zande (four starts), Mark Kvamme (a regular driver in the MSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship) and Jason Hart. Last year, JMW Motorsport was forced to retire early with a broken gearbox.
This is the third Le Mans appearance for the American team. After two entries in LMGTE Pro, Weather Tech Racing has switched to LMGTE where it aims to excel. For this year’s race, it has called on Cooper MacNeil, Julien Andlauer, 2018 LMGTE Am winner with Dempsey-Proton Racing, and Gianluca Giraudi.
This will be the very first 24 Hours of Le Mans for the American team, which owes its invitation to Rob Ferriol, winner of the Bob Akin Award last season in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. For its first Le Mans outing, the team is supported by Proton Compétition. Rob Feriol will be teamed with Katherine Legge, who competed in three FIA WEC races last year with Iron Lynx, and Belgian Adrien de Leener, who we saw at Le Mans in 2020 at the wheel of a Porsche for Dempsey-Proton Racing.
Check out the updated 24 Hours of Le Mans entry list.
