Le Mans Friday Notebook

***Friday’s program of events at Le Mans included the traditional ACO press conference at the Stade Marie Marvingt, the track walk and the drivers’ parade in Le Mans city center. McLaren, Genesis and Ford also revealed additional details about their forthcoming Hypercar programs in their respective press conferences.

***A new partnership between Toyota Gazoo Racing and the ACO’s Mission H24 project was announced during the ACO press conference. Toyota will assist Mission H24 in refining the aerodynamics and cooling of the fuel cell-powered H24 EVO prototype. The news follows the reveal of Toyota’s GR LH2 Racing Concept prototype, which utilizes internal combustion hydrogen technology, earlier in the week.

***Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe vice-chairman Kazuki Nakajima said during the press conference: “We will support the Mission H24 project with the know how we gained developing hydrogen in motorsport. We empathize with ACO’s strong commitment to hydrogen and we’d like to expand the potential of H2 not only in motorsport but in other fields. We think this can boost the momentum of hydrogen. It’s only the first step so I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do in the future.”

***McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown confirmed that the twin-turbo V6 engine that will power its new LMDh car is being built by Italian company Autotecnica Motori, which was also reportedly bid for the spec LMP2 powertrain tender that ultimately went to Gibson.

***Brown said development of the yet-to-be-named car, which will be publicly unveiled at Le Mans on Saturday morning in the fan village, is “well underway” and is set to hit the track in the first half of next year.

***ACO President Pierre Fillon clarified that further details, including the allocation of additional jokers and a possible second permitted car homologation, as part of the extension of the Hypercar regulations until 2032, will be decided by the end of the year.

***Fillon told Sportscar365: “What we said with Richard [Mille, FIA Endurance Commission President] this morning is that we announced that the homologation extension until 2032 but all the [details] will be discussed with the manufacturers before the end of the year.”

***Also announced at the ACO Press Conference were the winners of the DHL Sustainable Endurance Award, which saw AF Corse (Hypercar), United Autosports (LMP2) and Akkodis ASP Team (LMGT3) pick up silverware. Additionally, Porsche Penske Motorsport won the ‘President’s Prize’ and ASP scooped up the ‘Public’s Prize.’

***Peter Auto announced that the Le Mans Classic will now become an annual event, alternating between two different formats, the Le Mans Classic Heritage and Le Mans Classic Legend.

***Additionally, Peter Auto, in collaboration with the ACO and LMEM, will launch the ‘Legends of Le Mans’ series, a championship dedicated to LMP1 and LMP2 cars and GTs of the 2010s. The organization, in collaboration with SRO Motorsports Group, will also create the ‘GT3 Revival Series’ for GT3 cars from 2006-2013.

***It was also revealed that the ACO will be breaking ground on an expanded Le Mans museum, dubbed ‘M24’, later this year. It is expected to be completed by next May in time for the 2026 running of the French endurance classic.

***Ford Performance global director Mark Rushbrook said its alignment with ORECA as the chassis partner for its LMDh program made the most sense for the brand, despite its deep links with Multimatic, which builds and races the Mustang GT3 and GT4 models, among being involved in other sports car racing projects with the company.

***Rushbrook told Sportscar365: “We don’t automatically go with the same partner in every series. We’ve got different partners in NASCAR vs. sports cars vs. Formula 1. We looked at the Hypercar program individually, looked at what our strengths are, looked at what the strengths were of the different chassis partners and we believe ORECA is the right partner for us for this program.”

***Rushbrook indicated they’ve yet to finalize the team that will operate the factory Hypercars in the WEC, although paddock rumors have swirled regarding the possibilities, including an existing Hypercar and/or IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTP operation jumping ship.

***When asked if the LMDh car will be Mustang-branded, Rushbrook said there has been “no decisions or announcements on that.” He added: “If you look at how we’re going to go racing in Formula 1, it’s Ford with our partner Red Bull. When we race a Mustang, obviously, it’s a Mustang. When we race a Raptor, it’s Raptor. I think it makes sense for it to be Ford, but maybe there’s some design cues that go on the car. We’ll see.”

***Porsche Penske Motorsport managing director Jonathan Diuguid said a final decision on whether the team will run three-driver lineups at the Circuit of The Americas will be made after the next event in Sao Paulo, where the two factory Porsche 963s will run as two-driver squads. Diuguid reiterated that the current plan for the rest of the year is to maintain two-driver crews, except for the season-ending 8 Hours of Bahrain.

***Sebastien Buemi accepted the blame for the lock-up at Mulsanne corner that consigned the No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid to tenth on the grid for Saturday’s race. “It was on me, so I am quite disappointed,” he said. “But on the other hand, it was going to be difficult, because we gave all the opportunities to practice qualifying to Brendon [Hartley] the whole week, because we thought it was our only chance to go to Hyperpole 2.”

***Buemi added that he felt the mistake didn’t cost the No. 8 crew any more than two grid positions. “In my opinion, Brendon managed to overperform the car. He had a bit of a slipstream on his lap. I was already four tenths slower [when I locked up]. Honestly speaking, I think I would have been P10 anyway, so I took more risk.”

***Alpine driver Mick Schumacher admitted that Formula 1 remains his “big dream” ahead of his second Le Mans outing amid recent speculation linking him to the new-for-2026 Cadillac effort. “F1 has never left me, it’s on my mind,” he said. “It’s still very much on the cards. Only time will tell, but I am very excited to see what the future holds.”

***Alpine’s vice president of motorsport Bruno Famin confirmed to Sportscar365 that the French marque’s Viry-Chatillon facility will take over the assembly of the A424 LMDh’s 3.4-liter V6 engine from Mecachrome after this weekend’s race, as Alpine prepares to wind down its F1 engine program. “We just finished assembling the last F1 power unit for the current season, so our people will be available for that,” he said.

***Genesis Magma Racing is set to carry out its first on-track tests with the GMR-001 in August at Paul Ricard adjacent to the team’s facility in the South of France, newly appointed team manager Anouck Abadie told Sportscar365. Assembly for the first test car is scheduled for July.

***Of note, Abadie confirmed that although they hail from the same town, she is not related to Sarah and Simon Abadie, who head the Tech1 Racing squad that was active in LMP2 as well as in GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS with Lexus.

***The No. 63 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo will be allowed to start tomorrow’s race despite Le Mans rookies Stephen and Brenton Grove not completing their mandatory night laps after a crash on Wednesday and a gearbox issue in final practice on Thursday.

***A stewards’ bulletin outlined that stewards accepted the setbacks as a cause for the lack of night running and “allowed the car to continue in the competition due to the fact that the drivers have a certain experience in motorsport.” However, stewards imposed two conditions: that Luca Stolz must start the race and that the elder Grove will not be allowed to drive during the night-time hours of the race (10 p.m. to 6 a.m.).

***TF Sport Corvette driver Ben Keating lost his times from first qualifying on Wednesday due to pit lane speeding. It means that the No. 33 Corvette Z06 GT3.R will start Saturday’s race from 22nd in the LMGT3 class rather than 17th.

***Warm-up for the 24H Le Mans starts at 12 p.m. CEST (6 a.m. EST), with the race itself slated to kick off at 4 p.m. (10 a.m. EST).

John Dagys and Davey Euwema contributed to this report