24 Heures du Mans | 22:38:00

The Hypercar era has begun in earnest. The top class has been called Hypercar since 2021, with the Le Mans Hypercar-spec (L.M.H.) Toyota GR010 Hybrid & the Glickenhaus S.C.G. 007 L.M.H. competing against a grandfathered Le Mans Prototype 1-spec (L.M.P.1) Alpine. This year, there are no more grandfathered L.M.P.1 cars; sixteen cars are competing in Hypercar, nine L.M.H. & seven Le Mans Daytona hybrid-spec (L.M.D.h.). L.M.H. is a specification for the global World Endurance Championship (W.E.C.); L.M.D.h. is a specification for the North American I.M.S.A. SportsCar Championship (I.M.S.A.); the process of letting both specifications race in both series is called "convergence."

L.M.H.
№ 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid
№ 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid
№ 50 Ferrari 499P
№ 51 Ferrari 499P
№ 93 Peugeot 9X8
№ 94 Peugeot 9X8
№ 708 Glickenhaus S.C.G. 007 L.M.H.
№ 709 Glickenhaus S.C.G. 007 L.M.H.
№ 4 Vanwall Vandervell 680

L.M.D.h.
№ 5 Porsche 963
№ 6 Porsche 963
№ 38 Porsche 963
№ 75 Porsche 963
№ 2 Cadillac V-Series.R
№ 3 Cadillac V-Series.R
№ 311 Cadillac V-Series.R

The new era has gotten off to a rocky start. One of the L.M.D.h. Cadillacs crashed on the first lap, producing a safety car period. The new-for-2023 safety car procedure took forty minutes. So, in the first forty minutes of the centenery Le Mans, there was half a lap of racing & forty minutes under the safety car. This augurs ill for the next twenty-four hours, but I hope to be proven wrong.