McLaren’s outright victory at Le Mans in 1995 with an F1 GTR making its first appearance there remains one of motorsport’s greatest stories, and it’s certainly one of the brand’s proudest achievements. Now McLaren has announced that it’s heading back to the famous French race in 2024, for the first time since 1998.
McLaren’s racing arm pledged its commitment to race in the 2024 World Endurance Championship back in October, but that plan has now formally been given the go-ahead with approval from the FIA and ACO regulatory bodies.
McLaren won’t be contesting the top-tier category on which Ferrari will campaign its 499P off the back of a win at the 2023 event following an almost 60-year absence. Instead, the British firm will be racing in the new LMGT3 class that replaces the old GTE Am category. It will race the recently launched 720S GT3 Evo against other GT3-spec cars including the Ford Mustang, Ferrari 296, Aston Martin Vantage, Lamborghini Huracan, 911 GT3, and Lexus RC F.
McLaren is teaming up with United Autosports to campaign two cars in the WEC, while customer racing team Inception Racing will field a third car at Le Mans. The two United 720s will wear numbers 59 and 24 to commemorate the race number of the victorious F1 and also the year of its win. So, no pressure, then.
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“Motorsport is fundamental to our brand and we build our cars using technology from the race track to give them the supreme performance that our customers expect from a McLaren,” said McLaren CEO Michael Leiters, CEO.
“It will be a very exciting season and extremely close between the teams, which is why we have nominated United Autosports as our racing partner.”
United previously won the LMP2 class at Le Mans in 2020 and has raced McLaren cars before, competing with an MP4-12C GT3 in multiple series and winning the European GT4 championship with a 570S in 2021.
