24 Hours of Le Mans 2024 – Outlook by manufacturers: Porsche
The first free practice session of the 92nd edition will start this Wednesday: an opportunity to assess, before the serious things start, what the roughly fourteen manufacturers engaged in Hypercar and LMGT3 can hope for. Starting with the huge favorites: Porsche.
To each his due: leading the Hypercar and LMGT3 championships, with the official No. 6 963 and the Manthey PureX No. 91, Porsche has made great progress during the off-season, easily dominating the Toyota behemoth, albeit not spared by the BoP.
Be that as it may, the Stuttgart-based manufacturer is the only one among all those involved in Hypercar to rely on a numbers game with private teams, with no less than five cars in the WEC races, including two official ones. And it works!
It is enough to see that Team Jota, with N°12, is in 2nd place overall, before the grand event of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Not to mention that Proton, the second private team to operate a Porsche prototype, felt very comfortable during the 6 Hours of Spa.
After the Le Mans Test Day, Porsche asserts itself as the top contender for the overall victory, with a very strong pace that forces the competition to try (or pretend) to be in awe. And to make matters worse for the competition, Penske will have, as last year, three official 963s: the N°4, with Mathieu Jaminet, Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy, comes from the IMSA. But it’s not this one that won Daytona in January!
Porsche has what it takes to maximize its chances and they also remain in GT3: the #91 911 from Manthey PureX Racing is comfortably leading the championship, with three podiums out of three possible, including the victory at the beginning of the season.
The biggest threat remains BMW, with the two cars from Team WRT. The key for Manthey (including the No. 92 of Mathey EMA, winner at Spa) will be the same at Le Mans as it has been since the beginning of the season: consistency! Porsche on all fronts: that is a major advantage, especially in such an exceptional field.
This would allow Porsche to secure a 20th overall victory, pushing the record in Le Mans even further. And to achieve the same feat as in Losail: the double of victories in Hypercar and LMGT3. This would not fail to recall the era of LMP1, with the 919, and LMGTE-Pro, where factory commitments existed in the production class at the time.
Another beautiful story would be written if N°6, the championship leader, won this 92nd edition: that of the Frenchman Kévin Estre, who would secure his first overall victory at Le Mans. This would reward, with his teammates Laurens Vanthoor and André Lottererv a steadfast loyalty to Porsche, after victories in GT.
