Hypercar is complete, and we move to the LMP2 category. Though no longer included in the FIA World Endurance Championship, 17 invitations were given out to LMP2 teams from across the European Le Mans Series, Asian Le Mans Series and IMSA.
With no championship to worry about, Le Mans is all about the race victory for the LMP2 class, and these teams are turning out their best possible lineups for this one shot at glory in 2025.
How Deep is This Class?
An overall 24 Hours of Le Mans winner.
Six Le Mans class winners.
Five overall 24 Hours of Daytona winners
A Formula Two champion.
A Formula E champion.
This is without mentioning the likes of Louis Delétraz, Ben Hanley, Pietro Fittipaldi, Jamie Chadwick, Job van Uitert, Luca Ghiotto, Tristan Vautier, Nick Yelloly and Matthieu Vaxivière are also competing in this class.
LMP2 is 70% top-tier professional class with 20% quality amateurs and 10% regular amateurs.
We must thank Honda for not bringing its GTP car to Le Mans, otherwise possibly four drivers would not be in this class and that only adds to its strength. There are plenty of exciting names in LMP2.
André Lotterer is filling out the #18 IDEC Sport Oreca with Jamie Chadwick and Mathys Jaubert, and Chadwick and Jaubert lead the ELMS LMP2 championship through two rounds.
United Autosports won in LMP2 last year in Le Mans, and in its #22 Oreca it has put Fittipaldi, Renger van der Zande and David Heinemeier Hansson together while Hanley, Oliver Jarvis and Daniel Schneider are in the #23 Oreca.
Tom Blomqvist and Tristan Vautier are co-drivers in the #37 CLX - Pure Rxcing Oreca with Alex Malykhin. Antonio Félix da Costa is leading AF Corse's #183 Oreca will Vaxivière and François Perrodo. Vaxivière and Perrodo won the ELMS season opener in Barcelona. Delétraz is driving with Dane Cameron and P.J. Hyett in the #199 AO by TF Oreca.
Algarve Pro Racing has Théo Pourchaire with Lorenzo Fluxá and Matthias Kaiser in the #25 Oreca. Nielsen racing has Colin Braun, Cem Bölükbasi and Naveen Rao in the #24 Oreca. Patricio Pilet is in this class with RLR MSport along side Ryan Cullen and Michael Jensen. Frank Perera is in an LMP2 car for the first time in his career with VDS Panis Racing, and Perera is with a pair of children, 20-year-old Oliver Gray, making his Le Mans debut, and 20-year-old Esteban Masson, who made his Le Mans debut last year in LMGT3.
There are plenty of names in this class. There will be moments in this race where the battle in LMP2 will feel like it should be taking place in the Hypercar class.
Do the LMP2 Entries Have an Advantage Over the LMP2 Pro-Am Entries?
Probably not as big of an advantage as you think. In terms of sheer numbers, yes. Nine of the 17 entries are pro-am entries.
AF Corse won the ELMS season opener at Barcelona as a pro-am lineup. Two of the three cars on the podium at ELMS' Circuit Paul Ricard round were pro-am entries. Last year, AF Corse was the best LMP2 Pro-Am entry and it was on the same lap as the LMP2 winning #22 United Autosports entry, finishing fourth in LMP2. The next two LMP2 Pro-Am entries were a lap off the class winner.
The LMP2 entries should have an advantage, but considering that Hanley, Jarvis, Braun, Ghiotto, da Costa, Cameron, Delétraz and Nicky Catsburg are all in LMP2 Pro-Am entries, it would not be a stunner if one of those cars topped the LMP2 class at the end of 24 hours.
How Has the European Le Mans Series Season Been Going?
IDEC Sport leads the championship with Chadwick, Jaubert and Daniel Juncadella, who has LMGT3 responsibilities at Le Mans with Corvette. Second in the championship is Vector Sport, but Vector Sport was unable to secure an invite to Le Mans. That means two of its drivers, Cullen and Fittipaldi, have had to split to other entries.
Gray and Masson are third in the championship with Charles Milesi as its third driver, but Milesi will be in the Hypercar class at Le Mans with Alpine.
The top team from ELMS that had its lineup remain intact for Le Mans is the #43 Inter Europol Competition Oreca of Tom Dillman, Jakub Śmiechowski and Nick Yelloly. Inter Europol was fourth overall at Circuit Paul Ricard last month.
In Pro-Am, Nielsen Racing leads the championship, but none of those three drivers are entered at Le Mans. TDS Racing has been third in LMP2 Pro-Am in the first two races, and that car remains unchanged for Le Mans. Mathias Beche leads the #29 TDS Racing Oreca with Clément Novalak and Rodrigo Sales.
Are There Any Other Interesting Stories?
Proton Competition has entries in all three classes. It has the #99 Porsche 963 in Hypercar, Proton runs the two Ford Mustangs in LMGT3, and it has the #11 Oreca with René Binder, Giorgio Roda and Bent Viscaal in LMP2.
Of its four entries, I would say the LMP2 car is the third-most likely to win at Le Mans, behind the two Ford Mustangs but ahead of the Hypercar.
Then there is the #9 Iron Lynx - Proton Oreca, which has an average age of 20 between its three drivers. Macéo Capietto turned 19 years old in January, Jonas Reid is 20 years old and Reshad de Gerus is 21 years old. Capietteo and Reid ran together last year at Le Mans with Bent Viscaal, but the car only completed 86 laps.
This will be Patrick Pilet's 18th Le Mans and he has yet to win a class. RLR MSport doesn't even run an LMP2 car in ELMS competition. It runs a LMP3 program and earned its invite off its 2024 ELMS LMP3 title. This is very much a one-off lineup and one of the more unlikely collection of drivers for Pilet to potentially claim his first Le Mans victory.
General Le Mans Facts to Keep in Mind
There have been four different LMP2 winners in the last four years at Le Mans (Team WRT, Jota, Inter Europol, United Autosports).
The last team to win the LMP2 class in successive years at Le Mans was Signatech-Alpine in 2018 and 2019.
Jean-Denis Déletraz won in the LMP2 class at Le Mans twice, in the 2001 and 2002.
Nicolas Lapierre leads with four LMP2 victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. No other driver has won the class more than twice.
This will be André Lotterer's 14th Le Mans appearance, and it is the first time Lotterer is not in the top class.
This will be the third time in four years Pietro Fittipaldi and David Heinemeier Hansson are co-drivers at Le Mans, each in LMP2. United Autosports is Heinemeier Hansson’s fifth different team in his last five Le Mans appearances.
Schedule
Sunday June 8 marks the Le Mans test day with two three-hour sessions, the first taking place at 4:00 a.m. ET and the second run at 9:30 a.m. ET.
Practice during race week will begin on Wednesday June 11. The first practice will be held at 11:00 a.m. ET and run for three hours. The first round of qualifying will take place at 12:45 p.m., beginning with the LMP2 and LMGT3 classes taking to the track to determine the Hyperpole participants. The first round of Hypercar qualifying will be held at 1:30 p.m. ET. Each session will be 30 minutes. Wednesday ends with night practice at 4:00 p.m. and running for two hours.
Another three-hour practice will run at 8:45 a.m. on Thursday June 12. Hyperpole qualifying will be run at 2:00 p.m. starting with LMGT3 and LMP2. Hypercar's Hyperpole session will run at 3:05 p.m. The final night practice will be a one-hour session held at 5:00 p.m.
The 15-minute warm-up session will be run at 6:00 a.m. ET on Saturday June 14 prior to the start of the 93rd 24 Hours of Le Mans at 10:00 p.m. ET.