Photographing the 2024 Le Mans 24 Hours

Report by David Harbey 21 June 2024

It’s said that any true four wheeled motorsport sport fan should go to the 24 Hour race at Le Mans at least once – in the same way that any two wheeled fan should go to the TT. With my four wheeled heritage, it’s the twice around the clock race at the iconic French venue that features strongly in my motorsport history.

Indeed, it’s probably the race I have most often visited – this year was my twenty-ninth time since first going there in the eighties, Olympus OM2n in hand. A couple or three rolls of film and a wait for the boxes of 35mm slides to come back to you in the post in the following weeks …

The intervening years have seen one horse races, hugely competitive races, blazing sunshine, wind, hail and even late retirements from the lead – here’s last lap heartache for Toyota in 2016.

2023 and 2024 though saw the start of a new golden age for sportscars with a return to the top class of a number of manufacturer entries. Last year, for the centenary race, Ferrari returned to the winners circle for the first time in decades beating Cadillac, Peugeot, Porsche and Toyota. This year also saw new works entries from Alpine, BMW, Isotta Fraschini, and Lamborghini highlighted by the official poster.

A quick out and back trip was planned this year – staying at Alencon on Friday and Saturday and heading back to the UK on Sunday evening after the race. Tickets in the tribune with a good view of the big screen were purchased as a fall back should the weather be wet.

Finally, in a similar manner to 2023, a “travelling lite” approach was taken to camera kit – this time that DSLR starter staple of a Nikon D3400 and 55-200mm kit lens – to simply capture the flavour of the event – une carte postale if you will.

There’s been a few changes in recent years, primarily around the centenary celebration last year. New entrances have been built that suit the modern needs of security searches and electronic tickets.

Le Mans always attracted a huge crowd of 250,000 or so in the big years including many Brits, but with increased corporate guests and interest from motorsport fans, there was a quoted 329,000 spectators this year, just exceeding last year’s record. It certainly felt very busy in the main thoroughfares although a couple of the popular spectator photographer spots seemed a little less busy when visiting them.

With the 24 Hours not due to start until the traditional time of 4pm on Saturday, there was room for a couple of support races – except the Lamborghinis didn’t run again due to concerns over tyres from their first race on Thursday. The second Road to Le Mans race suffered a safety car like their first race with enthusiasm overtaking skill for some of the drivers.

Sitting in the grandstand we had a fine view of the action on the big screen. Unfortunately, the racing line is on the left here and the fence encroaches somewhat for photography. This is Andrew Gilbert who we mentioned in our Silverstone British GT report.

The traditional warm up used to take place early on Saturday, but this has moved to noon. A fifteen minute chance to check that all was well, especially for the #12 Jota Porsche that had been rebuilt from a bare tub since a huge accident on Thursday. Permission was given to shakedown the car on the runway of the local airstrip echoing the activities of past years.

The late lamented and legendary team boss Hugh Chamberlain always said that nothing good ever happens in warm up. Toyota and Lexus would agree as the former ran into the back of the latter. It also started raining (as promised).

Time to hurry back to the shelter of the grandstand for the dampish build up to the race - and grab a large bowl of tartiflette on the way.

This was the windiest Le Mans I have experienced with regular showers coming from the south-west to keep the team strategists on their toes and the occupants of the grandstand above the pits cool and wet.

The grid walk was packed including, I presume, corporate guests and well-heeled spectators willing to pay the price. Watching from our grandstand seats was not the most exciting way to spend a couple of hours as a spectator, but at least you were dry and could watch action in the pits and spot drivers you knew at the front end of the field along with an inflatable dragon called Spike.

Finally, the tricoleur was waved by Zinedine Zidane to get the action underway. Having let the race settle in for a couple of hours, it was time to head out to take some photos. The area around the Forest Esses and Tertre Rouge provides good opportunities – in most cases just above the fence line. A small step would give a little extra clearance over the top of the fence.

A return to the grandstand to observe some late evening pitstops rounded out the day before heading for a proper bed in a hotel (unlike some more hardy spectators).

Next morning, it was clear that it had rained a lot overnight – to the extent that there had been an extended safety car due the sheer quantity of the rain. By 9-ish however, it was a little brighter so it was back to Tertre Rouge via the Dunlop chicane where the light (when the sun chose to shine) was behind us and rather better for photography.

A weather eye (sorry !) on the Meteo France app indicated more rain at around noon and then on and off for the afternoon. Time to use the grandstand insurance policy again, methinks. The rest of the race however was far from boring with a record nine cars on the lead lap in the top class and 5 cars likewise in LMP2 at the finish.  The slightest slip up on the track or in pitstops by the Ferrari and Toyota teams would lead to a change of leader, thus the result was in the balance until the final minutes.

A tight timescale for the drive back to Calais meant there was only time to see the cars finish the race with no time this year to watch the podium or visit the ad hoc parc ferme at the Ford Chicane.

Le Mans had weaved its magic again – Ferrari had won for a second consecutive year  - and plans are already in mind for 2025 when Aston Martin are due to return. Perhaps those plans will include the qualifying sessions earlier in the week and even the driver parade in Le Mans centre which I have yet to see in all my years of going to the race.

Whilst the D3400 supplied a number of reasonable images from the race, 2025 is also likely to see a return to the D850 and the “big” lenses!

Results can be found here, click the image for more.

Le Mans 2024 video highlights.