Five Additional Withdrawals in Reduced 60-Car Le Mans Entry

An updated 60-car entry list has been released for this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, confirming five more withdrawals and three promotions from the reserve list.

The No. 5 Team LNT Ginetta G60-LT-P1 AER has dropped out of the LMP1 field, bringing the number of cars entered in the top class down to six.

Toyota and Rebellion Racing are still set to enter two cars each with their expected lineups, while LNT’s No. 6 car is present along with the single-car entry from ByKolles.

American teams Performance Tech Motorsports, Rick Ware Racing and GEAR Racing are also absent from the field for the 88th running of the classic endurance race.

IMSA outfit Performance Tech was due to enter an LMP2-class Oreca 07 Gibson, while Rick Ware Racing had a Riley Mk. 30 Gibson marked down in the same category and GEAR Racing was planning to run a Ferrari 488 GTE Evo in GTE-Pro.

Additionally, High Class Racing has cut back its LMP2 entry to one car. The Danish team’s No. 20 Oreca that had been promoted from the reserve list and was due to be driven by a lineup involving quadruple Le Mans class winner Jan Magnussen is no longer listed.

These entries join the SRT41 experimental Garage 56 effort and the two-car GTE-Pro entries from Corvette Racing and Porsche’s IMSA GT team that had already announced their withdrawals due to complications arising from the coronavirus pandemic.

Entries from DragonSpeed, Iron Lynx and Team Project 1 have been promoted to the main field to replace the most recent set of cars that are no longer present.

DragonSpeed now has two Orecas in LMP2. The American squad’s extra car has Henrik Hedman, Ben Hanley and NTT IndyCar Series star Felix Rosenqvist nominated.

Iron Lynx has added a second Ferrari 488 GTE Evo for its European Le Mans Series lineup of Sergio Pianezzola, Claudio Schiavoni and team co-founder Andrea Piccini.

2019 Le Mans GTE-Am class winner Team Project 1 is now set to field a third Porsche 911 RSR involving David Kolkmann and two drivers who are yet to be confirmed.

Other entries that have already been promoted from the reserve list due to previously-announced withdrawals are the No. 55 Spirit of Race Ferrari (replacing SRT41), ByKolles Racing and No. 17 IDEC Sport (Porsche) plus the No. 78 Proton Competition and the now-withdrawn No. 20 High Class Oreca (Corvette).

D’station Racing was also due to be added into the race, but the Japanese outfit’s Aston Martin Vantage GTE has not shown up on the updated entry list.

Additionally, Inter Europol Competition had already struck off its reserve Ligier LMP2 before the latest set of entries was revealed.

This explains the reduction in cars from 62 to 60 for this year’s race, which is being held on Sept. 19-20.