Photographing the 2023 Le Mans 24 Hour race – 100 years of racing twice round the clock

Report by David Harbey

3 July 2024

The Le Mans 24 Hour race has always held a special place for British enthusiasts, with success for marques like Bentley, Aston Martin and Jaguar over the years. More recently Porsche, Audi and Toyota have dominated the race, but the return of the works Ferrari team would only add to the magnitude of the celebration of the centenary race.

The first race in 1923 was won by the Chenard & Walcker of Lagache and Leonard and it was fitting that vehicle was chosen to bring the special centenary trophy to the start presentation.

Ferrari were not alone challenging Toyota who as victors in the last five races were most likely to win. However, the competition had upped its game considerably as the new Hypercar class also attracted works entries from Cadillac, Peugeot, Porsche plus Glickenhaus and Vanwall. PistonClick had a preview of the likely action at the WEC race at Spa in April - On that occasion, Toyota proved to be the class of the field.

It was our usual short weekend – travelling down Friday and returning on Monday, although for many it had been a week long pilgrimage, even more so now that the test day is on the Sunday before race weekend. Fortunately, Eurosport, Radio Le Mans and the internet had kept us fully up to date about practice and hyper pole where Ferrari stuck both their cars on the front row.

I’d also made the decision to be a tourist – Le Mans is not an especially spectator photographer friendly track and there’s always a large number of snappers wielding large lenses, monopods or tripods allied to machine gun like shutter actions !

It was also going to be the biggest crowd for many a long year, as we frustratingly found out when a large number of extra people were allowed into our grandstand above the pits for the start and finish.

So, I borrowed Mrs H’s entry level DSLR Nikon D3300 plus the 18-55mm and 55-200mm kit lenses to travel light and to see what I could capture as my memories of 2023 Le Mans. I wasn’t to be disappointed as my postcard from Le Mans below shows – all shots were taken from public areas.

In the event, Peugeot would have liked to win on home soil; Toyota would have liked to make it six wins in a row; Porsche would have liked to win in their car paying tribute in colour to all their previous wins and Cadillac (best sounding of the lot !) would have liked a first win at La Sarthe. Less likely would be wins by Glickenhaus or Vanwall, but to finish first, you must first finish !

In the event it was Ferrari who won fifty years after they last entered a works team at Le Mans – and it’s definitely a looker ! I managed to find the spot under the podium to see the victorious car at rest.

Footnote – the “NASCAR” …

Le Mans has an entry reserved for innovation – the so-called Garage 56 entry. This year a modified NASCAR was granted that place. Whilst it wasn’t built to any specific Le Mans class rules, it ran comfortably ahead of the GT class and sounded just glorious ! Pitstops were completed with the driver entering and exiting through the open window and a manual jack was used; they won the pre-race pitstop competition.  Not quite sure what it actually proved, but it was well worth seeing and hearing.