24 Hours of Detroit: Motor City racing brands take on Le Mans

Posted by Talbot Payne on June 24, 2024

France has a decidedly Detroit accent this week.

In a rare confluence, the Motor City’s most celebrated racing brands – Penske, Cadillac, Corvette and Ford — will all be vying for glory Saturday and Sunday at the world’s most prestigious sportscar race, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

A Ford Mustang LMGT3, alternately driven by Christian Ried, Ben Tuck and Christopher Mies. runs practice laps at the 24 Hours of Le Mans on Wednesday. It's among the Detroit Three models that will be racing there Saturday and Sunday.

A Ford Mustang LMGT3, alternately driven by Christian Ried, Ben Tuck and Christopher Mies. runs practice laps at the 24 Hours of Le Mans on Wednesday. It’s among the Detroit Three models that will be racing there Saturday and Sunday. Chris DuMond, Special To The Detroit News

If the Indianapolis 500 is the planet’s most demanding driver’s race, then Le Mans is where sports car legends are made. For 87-year old Roger Penske, partnered with Porsche, it is an opportunity to win the one major race that has eluded his trophy case. For Ford, whose GT-40 made Le Mans a household name in Hollywood’s “Ford v Ferrari,” 2024 opens a new era with its Mustang GT3 race car. For Cadillac, Le Mans is an opportunity to showcase battery-powered performance as the brand enters the European market. And for Corvette, the race is an opportunity to match America’s mid-engine supercar against European peers like Ferrari, Lamborghini and McLaren.

Gagne dimanche et vend lundi. Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.

The Whelen Cadillac V-Series car soars down the Le Mans track during practice laps Wednesday. It's being driven alternately by Luis Felipe Derani, Jack Aitken and Felipe Drugovich in this weekend's 24-hour marathon.
The Whelen Cadillac V-Series car soars down the Le Mans track during practice laps Wednesday. It’s being driven alternately by Luis Felipe Derani, Jack Aitken and Felipe Drugovich in this weekend’s 24-hour marathon. Chris DuMond, Special To The Detroit News

“Le Mans is the oldest and most celebrated endurance race in the world,” said ex-General Motors Co. vice chairman and product guru Bob Lutz, whose 47-year automotive career spanned both sides of the Atlantic pond. “The fame of Le Mans is now considerable in the U.S. — a French event so extreme that, like the cycling Tour de France, it has gained international recognition.”

Le Mans’ epic, 8.5-mile track sprawls across a combination of public and private roads that are dedicated to racing each June. Racers routinely hit speeds in excess of 200 mph on its famed Mulsanne Straight with three classes going wheel-to-wheel, rain-or-shine for 24 hours through daylight and the black of night.

Multi-driver teams swap out multi-hour stints in a grueling test of man and machine. The world’s greatest drivers have made their names there — Bell, Ickx, McLaren — as have the world’s most revered sportscars: Porsche 917, Ford GT40, Audi R8, Ferrari 250, Jaguar D-Type.

“In view of its extreme length, with drivers alternating every few hours, night and day, Le Mans demands not only driving skill, but also a considerable amount of tactical thinking,” Lutz said. “It is a driving force in validating new technology, be it in hybrid systems, engines, tires, brakes, even lighting. After all, it is a full night and a full day of maximum performance, straining every component of the car.”

No wonder, then, that a historic partnership between global race sanctioning bodies — North America’s IMSA and Europe’s WEC — allowing manufacturers to race the same cars across multiple continents has attracted a who’s who of auto’s elite for the 2024 race.

Here are the Detroit players.

Team Penske. Teamed with Porsche, with 19 victories the winningest marque in Le Mans history, Penske has put together a formidable racing effort with three cars in the top, Hypercar class. Paddock buzz has them as the favorite over a packed Hypercar field that includes entries from Ferrari, Toyota, Cadillac, Peugeot, BMW and Lamborghini.

A Porsche 963, one of three Penske entries in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, roars through a practice lap Wednesday. Matt Campbell, Michael Christensen and Frédéric Makowiecki will take turns behind the wheel this weekend.

A Porsche 963, one of three Penske entries in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, roars through a practice lap Wednesday. Matt Campbell, Michael Christensen and Frédéric Makowiecki will take turns behind the wheel this weekend. Chris DuMond, Special To The Detroit News

“I think (Porsche Penske) has the edge on every aspect and I wonder what Ferrari and Cadillac are doing,” Toyota Gazoo Racing’s technical director David Floury commented after last weekend’s test sessions. “BMW looks good as well. Behind Porsche, it should be a good fight.”

That respect hasn’t come easily. The Porsche Penske team struggled out of the box in its inaugural, 2023 season with numerous gremlins. The 2023 Le Mans was a disappointment with ninth place the best result of the three Porsche 963s — each suffering incidents or technical defects.

Another Porsche 963, alternately driven by Mathieu Jaminet, Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy, runs practice laps Wednesday.

Another Porsche 963, alternately driven by Mathieu Jaminet, Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy, runs practice laps Wednesday. Chris DuMond, Special To The Detroit News

But 2024 began on a strong note with Porsche taking the overall win at IMSA’s 24 Hours of Daytona. On the international WEC stage, Porsche Penske is leading the points championship with wins at Qatar and Spa (Belgium), while its three-car fleet topped Le Mans time charts on test day.

Roger “The Captain” Penske won his record 20th Indy 500 in May so it would be poetic were he to win his first Le Mans in June.

Ford Mustang. This isn’t the Blue Oval’s first French rodeo.

More than any Detroit brand, Ford is synonymous with Le Mans. Ford’s beatdown of Ferrari in 1966 is the stuff of legend — immortalized in the Oscar-nominated blockbuster movie “Ford v Ferrari.” Ford followed that historic win with three more in succession from 1967-1969. Then Ford returned 50 years later with a modern GT to beat Ferrari again in 2016.

This year charts a new course for Ford at Le Mans, one that promises to last for many years. Instead of launching an expensive, limited-run prototype car like Porsche’s 963 (or like its 1960s Ford GT-40 program) Ford is introducing a race version of its best-selling sports car, the Mustang, for GT3-class, production-based race cars.

“This is about Mustang going against the best sports cars in the world,” said Ford Performance Chief Mark Rushbrook in an interview. “Don’t get me wrong — prototype is fantastic, right? It races for the overall win — but it’s more bespoke chassis. Mustang is more representation of the overall brand, and what we want to do is show how great Mustang is.”

Joly Sebastien of Pas-de-Calais, France, shops for Ford Mustang merchandise at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in Le Mans, France on June 12, 2024.
Joly Sebastien of Pas-de-Calais, France, shops for Ford Mustang merchandise at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in Le Mans, France on June 12, 2024. Chris DuMond, Special To The Detroit News

Rather than fielding a Ford factory team, Ford engineers will support three cars entered by a German-based customer team, Proton Competition. It’s the model that has been successful for Mustang in other racing series including NASCAR, NHRA, IMSA, Australian Supercars and Formula Drift. In coming years, Ford Performance could provide support for perhaps as many as 50 Mustang GT3 race teams around the world.

“This program gets more Mustangs on track in a sustainable way,” said Rushbrook, “because we’re not racing as a factory, simply spending money. We’re building cars, selling cars, that help our customers keep racing.”

“The Ford Mustang has raced in circuits across the world for decades, and now is the time for us to race our iconic coupe at the most important race in the world,” said Jim Farley, Ford Motor Co. CEO. “Ford has a rich history at Le Mans dating back to the first race in 1923, and we are excited to return to the global stage in what promises to be one of the most exciting races of the modern era.”

Cadillac Racing. For Cadillac, a Le Mans victory would be the icing on a larger corporate effort to introduce Europeans to America’s iconic luxury brand – reinvented as an all-electric brand as Europe bans gas cars by 2035. While the V8-powered Cadillac Hypercar rumbles down Mulsanne with electric hybrid assist, fans at Cadillac’s infield display will ogle the all-electric Optiq and Lyriq SUVs.

The Cadillac V-Series driven alternately by Sébastien Bourdais, Renger van der Zande and Scott Dixon tears up the track during a practice run Wednesday.

The Cadillac V-Series driven alternately by Sébastien Bourdais, Renger van der Zande and Scott Dixon tears up the track during a practice run Wednesday. Chris DuMond, Special To The Detroit News

“Le Mans is hugely important for prestige and performance brands,” said Lutz. “For Cadillac, a brand still struggling for technological recognition on both sides of the Atlantic, successful participation is a hugely effective way of communicating excellence in a market where Cadillac is attempting to gain a foothold.”

Cadillac made its debut at Le Mans in 1950, but the brand really focused on racing in the last 10 years with its V-Series prototypes. Under the watchful eye of the Chip Ganassi (also one of Penske’s North American IndyCar rivals) and Whelan Racing teams, Cadillac has been a force in North America, winning the IMSA title four of the last six years.

In its 2023 Le Mans Hypercar debut, Cadillac placed a strong third and looks to climb the ladder this year behind a driver lineup that includes IndyCar aces Scott Dixon, Sébastien Bourdais and Alex Palou.

Chevy Corvette. Like Ford and Mustang, Corvette is pivoting to customer-support racing after years of entering a factory-backed ‘Vette. The factory effort was one of the most successful of the modern era, with Corvette winning Le Mans’ GT class nine times since the turn of the 21st century.

This year, two Corvettes are entered by the British TF Sport team. Success at Le Mans would be a big shot in the arm for GM’s fledgling GT3 customer program.

“Corvette, despite its excellence, is still viewed with a jaundiced eye by many European sportscar fans,” said Lutz. The Z06.R’s high-revving V-8 is matched only by Ferrari’s similar V-8 mill based on a $350k production car costing three times as much.

With 250,000 fans descending on Le Mans for the race weekend — and another 113 million tuning in on television around the world (Motor Trend TV will carry Le Mans exclusively stateside) — the 24 hours race is an international showcase for Detroit iron.

“We are a global company, and have been a global company for a long time,” said Ford’s Rushbrook. “A lot of that history began in the ‘60s (on Le Mans’) global stage against the best car companies. It really is a great opportunity for us to speak to who we are as a company, to speak about our products, to speak about our employees, and to really connect with fans in a full way.”

Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or @HenryEPayne.

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