Le Mans Safety Car Procedure Revised; Drop-Back Scrapped

The organizers of the 24 Hours of Le Mans have revealed a revised safety car procedure for the 2024 running of the French endurance classic, with the ‘drop-back’ procedure having been scrapped.

New safety car rules introduced for the 2023 race were a constant talking point, as the Automobile Club de l’Ouest opted to trial three new innovations, the ‘merge’, the ‘pass-around’ and ‘drop-back’, in a bid to prevent battles being split up.

However, a common criticism of the new system was that restarts took too long, with the new procedures often taking as long as 20 minutes to complete before racing could resume once the track was clear.

Just over three hours of the 2023 race was spent behind the safety car across a total of three safety car periods.

Supplementary regulations released for next year’s race show that the ‘drop-back’ element has been abandoned, while the ‘merge’ and ‘pass-around’ remain in place.

Under the 2023 system, the long-established initial process of the field forming up behind three safety car trains evenly spaced around the 8.467-mile Circuit de la Sarthe remained in place.

That was followed by the ‘merge’, whereby two of the three safety cars pulled into the pits, leaving the field to line up behind the single remaining safety car.

Once that procedure was complete, the ‘pass-around’ allowed cars circulating ahead of the class leader to pass the safety car and rejoin the back of the queue. Teams had to determine their own eligibility for the ‘pass-around’, with any car taking it without being eligible subject to a penalty worth two race laps.

Under the 2023 rules, the ‘drop-back’ would see firstly LMP2 and then GTE Am cars move over to one side of the track and allow cars from the other classes to move ahead in the queue – creating a restart with all three classes separated from one another.

With the revised system, all three classes – Hypercar, LMP2 and LMGT3 – will remain mixed at each restart.

As per last year, the ‘merge’ and ‘pass-around’ will not be used if there is less than 60 minutes remaining in the race.