Why the 2023 Le Mans race will be one of the most exciting for many years to come and who will take part

When the 2022 24-hour race ended I said myself that it had become particularly boring for the past few years due to the lack of competition for the outright victory. After Audi and Porsche withdrew several years ago, Toyota was left with no real competitor in its weight class and was winning as a formality, in a race where all competition cars are supposed to be at the limit of their strength, just like the pilots. But even then we said that the year 2023 will probably bring the biggest change at Le Mans in recent decades, with the change in regulations, which made the upper class much more attractive, and thus many more manufacturers announced their participation.

In July 2022, Cadillac announced the parameters of the car, which will participate in Le Mans 2023. It has a 5.5-liter V8 engine, part of a hybrid propulsion system!

Photo: One of the Cadillac cars at Le Mans 2023

Also in July, Porsche announced it would also return to Le Mans, also with a hybrid car with a V8 engine, this time a 4.6 liter, biturbo.

Photo: Porsche cars from Le Mans 2023

In October Ferrai announced that it will also participate in Le Mans 2023, and the Italians have chosen to come with a V6 biturbo engine, part of a hybrid system, with a maximum permitted total power of 680 HP .

Photo: One of the Ferrari cars from Le Mans 2023

And just from these participants, a fierce competition between Cadillac, Porsche and Ferrari is already taking shape. Here we could think about the last time Ferrari was at Le Mans in the top class, claiming victory! And then, we notice the engineering freedom that the teams now have in the propulsion systems. The maximum power is limited, but we see that there are also V8 engines of different displacement, and V6! But not even here are the reasons why this race will be one of the most exciting for many years to come.

First of all, among reasons not yet mentioned, this race will mark exactly 100 years of Le Mans 24h history! Yes, in 1923 the first race took place, and since then a whole century has already passed. There were not 100 races, because there were pauses caused by the war, but, nevertheless, there are 100 years of fabulous history, written by one of the most extraordinary races, a history mentioned in detail and in a video recently published by Porsche.

Photo: Image from the 1923 Le Mans race.

Secondly, the list of intriguing participants is larger than the one mentioned above. Only in the main class, called the Hypercar class, there are 2 Cadillac cars, 3 Porsche cars, 2 Toyota Gazoo Racing cars, 2 Ferrari cars, 2 Peugeot cars (yes, the French also participate!), plus a few other teams. Besides that, 1 Porsche 963 similar to the factory team is also used by the Hertz Team Jota team, and the same happens with a Cadillac of the Action Express Racing team. In total, 16 cars will compete in this class alone, and between Porsche, Ferrari and Cadillac, as well as Peugeot, there is no way that it will not be a fierce competition!

Photo: One of the Peugeot cars from Le Mans 2023

The LMP2 class is less intriguing because all the cars are built on the same Oreca Gibson chassis. And in the LMGTE Am class, those cars with silhouettes closer to street ones participate, and there are also some Aston Martin Vantage AMR, and Chevrolet Corvette C8.R, but also the well-known and time-tested Ferrari 488 GTE Evo and Porsche 911 RSR.

In total, 62 cars will line up at the starting line!

And since each car must have a team of 3 drivers, not to mention engineers and mechanics, this means that 186 drivers will compete in the 24 hours of the race that marks 100 years of history!

But, of course, the main intriguing element of this year's race is the large number of notorious car manufacturers that have returned to the race and the diversity of the cars they are participating in. That will make the race interesting, there is a real competition between the various solutions chosen by them for the construction of the cars, not only between the drivers! And, by the way, next year BMW is also joining the race! So, well you've revived it so beautifully, Le Mans 24h!

The race will start on Saturday at 16:00 local time, or 17:00 in our country. And everything will last, of course, 24 hours, until Sunday at the same time.