The 87th 24 Hours of Le Mans (French: 87e 24 Heures du Mans) was an 24-hour automobile endurance race for Le Mans Prototype and Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance cars entered by teams of three drivers each held from 15 to 16 June 2019 at the Circuit de la Sarthe, close to Le Mans, France before approximately 252,500 people. It was the 87th running of the event, as organised by the automotive group, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) since . The round was the last race in the 2018–19 FIA World Endurance Championship and the second time in the season that the series had visited Le Mans. A test day was held two weeks prior to the race on 2 June.
A Toyota TS050 Hybrid shared by Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López started from pole position after Kobayashi set the overall fastest lap time in the second qualifying session. The race was won by the Toyota trio of Fernando Alonso, Sébastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima after López slowed in the 23rd hour due to a wired tyre pressure sensor system, which incorrectly indicated a puncture on a tyre that was later found not to have any issues. It was Alonso, Buemi, Nakajima and Toyota's second consecutive Le Mans win. The No. 7 Toyota finished almost 17 seconds behind in second position. The No. 11 SMP Racing BR1 of Mikhail Aleshin, Vitaly Petrov and Stoffel Vandoorne was the highest-placed non-hybrid LMP1 car in third place.
The Signatech Alpine team of Nicolas Lapierre, André Negrão and Pierre Thiriet won the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) category with the Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca 07 car of Ho-Pin Tung, Gabriel Aubry and Stéphane Richelmi second. On the 70th anniversary of Ferrari's first overall Le Mans victory the AF Corse team won the Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Professional (LMGTE Pro) class with James Calado's, Alessandro Pier Guidi's and Daniel Serra's 488 GTE Evo from a Porsche 911 RSR driven by Richard Lietz, Gianmaria Bruni and Frédéric Makowiecki. The Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Amateur (LMGTE Am) category was led for most of the time by Keating Motorsports' Ford GT of Jeroen Bleekemolen, Felipe Fraga and Ben Keating which was the first to finish the race. It was later disqualified for an oversized fuel tank and Project 1 Racing's Porsche of Jörg Bergmeister, Patrick Lindsey and Egidio Perfetti inherited the class win.
The result won Alonso, Buemi and Nakajima the LMP Drivers' Championship by 41 points over Conway, Kobayashi and López. Thomas Laurent and Gustavo Menezes of the Rebellion Racing team finished third ahead of Aleshin and Petrov in fourth and the Rebellion duo of Neel Jani and André Lotterer in fifth. Porsche's Michael Christensen and Kévin Estre finished tenth in LMGTE Pro to claim the GTE Drivers' Championship with 155 points. LMGTE Pro class race winners Calado and Pier Guidi passed Bruni and Lietz to end the season in second place.
Background
The dates for the 2019 24 Hours of Le Mans were confirmed at a meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council in its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland on 19 June 2017. It was the 87th Le Mans race, the final automobile endurance event of the 2018–19 FIA World Endurance Championship (FIA WEC), and was the second visit to Le Mans during the season.
After winning the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, Toyota drivers Fernando Alonso, Sébastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima led the LMP Drivers' Championship with 160 points, 31 ahead of their teammates Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López in second. 38 points were available for the final race, which meant Conway, Kobayashi and López could win the LMP Drivers' Championship if they won and Alonso, Buemi and Nakajima finished eighth or lower. With 140 points, Porsche's Michael Christensen and Kévin Estre led the GTE Drivers' Championship by 36 points over their second-placed teammates Gianmaria Bruni and Richard Lietz. Christensen and Estre needed to finish eighth or better to claim the title as Bruni and Lietz needed to win at Le Mans and their teammates to attain a sub-par result. The LMP1 Teams' Championship and the GTE Manufacturers' Championship had already been won by Toyota and Porsche, respectively.
Regulation changes Following a two-lap victory for Porsche in the Le Mans Grand Touring Professional (LMGTE Pro) category in , the ACO revised Le Mans' safety implementation system after team managers raised procedural concerns. Full course yellow flags mandating cars to slow to in the event of an accident were implemented for the first time at Le Mans. The system became the preferred method of slowing the race as opposed to deploying three safety cars and enforcing slow zones. The ACO also permitted drivers to enter the pit lane during safety car conditions and exit it before a second safety car passed by so that they could remain in the same group of vehicles when racing resumed.
Entries The ACO Selection Committee received 75 applications for entries between the LMP1 (Le Mans Prototype 1), LMP2 (Le Mans Prototype 2), LMGTE Pro and LMGTE Am (Le Mans Grand Touring Amateur) categories from 20 December 2018 to 30 January 2019. The automotive group initially planned to accept 60 cars into the race but wishing to not exclude applications of a "high standard" they allowed 62 to race. The ten-panel Selection Committee took steps to ensure that the two additional required pits would be operational in time for the 2019 edition.
Automatic entries Automatic entry invitations were earned by teams that won their class in the 2018 24 Hours of Le Mans. Teams who won championships in the European Le Mans Series (ELMS), Asian Le Mans Series (ALMS), and the Michelin Le Mans Cup (MLMC) were also invited. The second-place finisher in the 2018 ELMS LMGTE championship also earned an automatic invitation. The ACO chose two IMSA SportsCar Championship (IMSA) teams to be automatic entries regardless of their performance or category. As invitations were granted to teams, they were allowed to change their cars from the previous year to the next, but not their category. The LMGTE class invitations from the ELMS and ALMS were allowed to choose between the Pro and Am categories. ELMS' 2018 LMP3 (Le Mans Prototype 3) champion was required to field an entry in LMP2 while the 2018–19 ALMS LMP3 champion was permitted to choose between LMP2 or LMGTE Am. The 2018 MLMC GT3 champion was limited to the LMGTE Am category.
On 11 February 2019, the ACO announced the initial list of automatic entries. Driver Misha Goikhberg, who was invited to the race by winning the Jim Trueman Award for being "the top-placed gentleman driver" in IMSA's Daytona Prototype International category, transferred his automatic entry to WeatherTech Racing per an agreement.
+Automatic entries for the 2019 24 Hours of Le Mans Reason invited LMP1 LMP2 LMGTE Pro LMGTE Am 1st in the 24 Hours of Le Mans Toyota Gazoo Racing Signatech Alpine Matmut Porsche GT Team Dempsey-Proton Racing 1st in the European Le Mans Series (LMP2 and LMGTE) G-Drive Racing Proton Competition 2nd in the European Le Mans Series (LMGTE) JMW Motorsport 1st in the European Le Mans Series (LMP3) RLR MSportIMSA SportsCar Championship at-large entries Misha Goikhberg Ben Keating 1st in the Asian Le Mans Series (LMP2 and GT) United Autosports CarGuy Racing 1st in the Asian Le Mans Series (LMP2 Am) ARC Bratislava 1st in the Asian Le Mans Series (LMP3) Inter Europol Competition – or – Inter Europol Competition 1st in the Michelin Le Mans Cup (GT3) Kessel Racing
Entry list and reserves
For the 2019 event, the list of race entries was revealed in two stages: the first 42 cars were announced on 11 February with the rest of the field and 10 reserve cars in the LMP2 class and the two LMGTE categories announced on 1 March. The ACO attributed the 2018–19 FIA WEC's format as a reason for the alteration. In addition from the 34 guaranteed entries from the FIA WEC, 15 came from the ELMS, nine from IMSA, five from the ALMS and a solitary one-off Le Mans specific entry.
In addition to the 62 entries given invitations for the race, 10 were put on a reserve list to replace any withdrawn or ungranted invitations. Reserve entries were ordered with the first replacing the first withdrawal from the race, regardless of the class and entry. The Spirit of Race team announced the withdrawal of their Ferrari 488 GTE Evo on 21 March, citing "an unavoidable family commitment" as the reason. Duqueine Engineering's Oreca 07-Gibson car was promoted to the race entry as a result. That same day, Michael Shank Racing withdrew its Algarve Pro Racing-run Oreca 07 car from the reserve list because the team was ninth in that list.
On 16 April, on the day that the ACO announced that two additional temporary pit garages would be constructed to raise the number of cars for the event to 62, the No. 32 United Autosports Ligier JS P217-Gibson and High Class Racing's No. 20 Oreca 07 were the two cars promoted from the reserve list to the race entry. With the subsequent withdrawal of the Ebimotors LMGTE Am car from the reserve entries, five reserves remained on the list: the Eurasia Motorsport, Panis-Barthez Compétition, IDEC Sport, Team Project 1 and TF Sport teams.
Pre-race balance of performance changes The FIA Endurance Committee altered the LMP equivalence of technology and the LMGTE balance of performance to try to create parity within each category. All non-hybrid LMP1 cars had their maximum fuel flow increased from to with the Toyota TS050 Hybrid's unchanged at . The Toyota's minimum weight was set at , the turbocharged non-hybrid LMP1 vehicles at and the non-turbocharged privateer LMP1 cars at .
For the LMGTE Pro class, the Porsche 911 RSR and BMW M8 GTE had respective ballast increases of and and less turbocharger boost curve for lower performance. The Ford GT's weight was increased by and its turbocharger boost curve altered to raise its top speed. Conversely, the Aston Martin Vantage, the Chevrolet Corvette C7.R, and the Ferrari 488 Evo had of ballast removed and the Ferrari's turbocharger boost curve was made more powerful. In LMGTE Am, the Ford was made heavier than the Ferrari 488 GTE. The 2017-specification Aston Martin Vantage had of weight deducted while Porsche had no performance changes.
Testing A test day held on 2 June required all race entrants to participate in eight hours of driving divided into two sessions. Toyota led the morning session with a lap of 3:21.875 from Buemi. His teammate López was second and led until Buemi's lap. Gustavo Menezes' No. 3 Rebellion R13 car followed in third, with Vitaly Petrov and Stéphane Sarrazin's SMP Racing BR1 cars fourth and fifth. Filipe Albuquerque's No. 22 United Autosports Ligier car led in LMP2 with a 3:32.245 lap, ahead of Pastor Maldonado's No. 31 DragonSpeed, the Graff of Tristan Gommendy and Nyck de Vries' Racing Team Nederland Dallara P217 cars. Billy Johnson's No. 66 Ford led LMGTE Pro for most of the session until Antonio García's No. 63 Corvette overtook him. Francesco Castellacci's Spirit of Race Ferrari was the fastest car in LMGTE Am from Jeff Segal's JMW Motorsport Ferrari. Mechanical issues on Jordan King's No. 37 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca and Marco Sørensen's No. 95 Aston Martin and Paul-Loup Chatin's crash into a tyre barrier at Indianapolis corner disrupted the session.