A busy few weeks in motorsport continues with the world-famous 24 hours of Le Mans endurance race in France, as some of the world's best drivers come together for endurance racing's showpiece event.
This is the 92nd(!) edition of Le Mans, which brings together elite racing drivers from around the world and multiple classes of sports cars, testing racers' skills and the durability of their vehicles to the absolute limit.
The Le Mans 24 Hours is also a round of the FIA's top-tier World Endurance Championship (WEC) and is part of the prestigious Triple Crown of Motorsport, along with the Formula 1 Monaco grand prix and the IndyCar Series' Indianapolis 500 oval race.
This year's entry list includes ex-Formula 1 stars, a large number of the current IndyCar and Formula E lineups, a rising star from F1 Academy, plus a MotoGP icon.
Here's how you can watch all the action.
Le Mans 24 hours 2024 – how to watch in the UK
In the UK, the best places to catch the 24 Hours of Le Mans are on Eurosport and streaming service Discovery+.
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In 2021, Discovery signed a wide-ranging deal to carry coverage of both Le Mans and the wider WEC season. You'll also find coverage of French Open tennis, Giro D'Italia cycling and World and British superbikes on the streamer.
You can either sign up directly via Discovery+ or through Amazon Prime Video Channels. To watch Le Mans and WEC coverage, you'll need the Discovery+ Entertainment & Sport option, which is priced at £6.99 per month or £59.99 per year in the UK.
If you're signing up via Amazon, you'll also need to be an Amazon Prime member before you can add Discovery+ Entertainment & Sport as a Prime Video Channel option.
New customers can test the Prime service with a 30-day free trial, with access priced at £8.99 per month after that. Perks include original programming like The Boys, live sports including selected Premier League games, free premium delivery and early access to Amazon's popular 'Lightning Deal' flash sales.
Meanwhile, Discovery+ has a top-tier package that also includes Formula E and Moto GP coverage.
The Discovery+ premium (including TNT Sports) membership is priced at £30.99 per month and also unlocks access to selected men's Premier League football games, NBA basketball, UEFA Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League football, plus action from Serie A and Ligue 1. Until the rights move to Netflix, you'll also be able to watch WWE via TNT Sports.
Le Mans 24 hours 2024 dates
The Le Mans 24 Hours itself starts on Saturday, June 15 at 4pm local time (that's 3pm in the UK, and 10am or 7am depending on whether you're on the east or west coast of the US). It concludes at 4pm local time on Sunday, June 16.
Like the Indy 500, Le Mans usually has some famous start the race by waving the French flag. This year, organisers have given that responsibility to footballer-turned-coach Zinedine Zidane, and he joins a list of official starters including Brad Pitt, LeBron James, Rafael Nadal and Fernando Alonso.
The rest of the schedule, after the cars have been scrutineered on June 7 and 8, looks like this. Times shown below are local time — so one hour earlier if you're in the UK, 6 hours earlier if you're on the east coast of the US and 9 hours earlier if you're on the west coast.
June 9: Free practice sessions (10am-1pm and 3.30pm-6.30pm)
June 12: Free practice sessions (2pm-5pm and 10pm-midnight)
A qualifying practice session also takes place between 7pm and 8pm, with the top eight cars in each class going through to the Hyperpole session.
June 13: Free practice session (3pm-6pm) and Hyperpole sessions (8pm-11pm)
June 14: Warm-up (12pm-12.15pm)
Le Mans 24 hours 2024 entry list and drivers
You'll find a full interactive entry list for the Hypercar, LMP2 and LMGT3 classes on the official 24h Le Mans website, in both English and French. You can also download a PDF listing all the entrants by category of car.
The end of the GTE Am class at Le Mans means no Hollywood stars like Michael Fassbender or Patrick Dempsey on the entry list this year.
There are also some additional rules – LMP2 cars will still take part even though there's no LMP2 category in this year's WEC competition, with a 16-strong field. And LMGT3 cars must be taking part in the full WEC season to be eligible for entry to the Le Mans 24 Hours this year.
Three teams from IMSA, the top flight of sportscar racing in North America, have been invited to Le Mans – one in each class.
Each Le Mans team has three drivers, who drive in a shift pattern over the course of the race. If you've ever wondered where racing drivers go to sleep at Le Mans, then check out Jack Aitken's tour of the Cadillac 'driver hotel' on TikTok.
A glance at the entry list reveals a host of ex-Formula 1 stars including (take a deep breath) Jenson Button, Nyck de Vries, Kamui Kobayashi, Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, Romain Grosjean, Mick Schumacher, Daniil Kvyat, Robert Kubica, Paul di Resta, Antonio Giovinazzi, Sébastien Bourdais, Will Stevens, Jean-Éric Vergne, Felipe Nasr, Stoffel Vandoorne and Jack Aitken.
Olivier Panis also takes part once again as a team owner, while former F1 test driver and 2021 Le Mans winner José María López has received a last-minute call-up to replace the injured Mike Conway.
Giovinazzi and his co-drivers James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi go into Le Mans as the reigning hypercar class champions. But expect a strong showing from Buemi, Hartley and their teammate Ryō Hirakawa, who've enjoyed huge success in previous years. They're also the reigning WEC series champions.
Having driven the Le Mans 24 field's only NASCAR Chevrolet Camaro last year, Button takes to the wheel of a Porsche hypercar this time for Hertz Team Jota.
IndyCar reigning series champion Álex Palou has a top hypercar ride with Cadillac, as does his Ganassi teammate, six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon.
Callum Ilott, who just ran in the Indy 500 for Arrow McLaren, returns to his primary series after winning the third round of the WEC championship in Spa, while IndyCar Series rookies Nolan Siegel and Kyffin Simpson will both run in LMP2 this year.
Numerous Formula E stars have also booked themselves a Le Mans ride during a gap in that series' schedule. In addition to Vergne, Vandoorne, de Vries and Buemi, look out for Robin Frijns, Norman Nato, Edo Mortara and Nico Müller.
The entry list also features three F1 reserve drivers, Frederik Vesti, Felipe Drugovich and Robert Shwartzman – plus F1 Academy star Doriane Pin, who competes as part of an all-women Iron Dames lineup in the GT3 class.
Finally, a bonafide racing icon makes his competitive debut at Le Mans this year.
Since leaving MotoGP, Valentino Rossi has been racing cars, and now competes in the WEC championship's LMGT3 class. His car bears the same racing number, 46, that he ran during his top-flight career on two wheels.
Last year, Rossi won a support race at Le Mans driving a GT3 car and scored his maiden WEC podium at the 6 Hours of Imola in April – so he'll be hoping to make a similar impact in the main event.
Kate (they/she) is a freelance writer, editor, digital editorial trainer and data technician who first joined Digital Spy as an overnight freelance sub-editor in January 2011, after studying a postgraduate diploma in journalism at Salford University while working part-time as a social researcher.
In July 2013, Kate joined the DS staff team as chief sub-editor and following six years as the site's managing editor, their role expanded to incorporate Hearst UK's entertainment portfolio (including Digital Spy and its sibling titles Best and Inside Soap) between late 2024 and early 2026.
Kate has worked as a writer and editor since 2006, with bylines syndicated across the Hearst network and at organisations including Metro. They started their career as a TV production runner for the BBC and contributed to various music websites, blogs and zines while based in Manchester.
During her time at DS, Kate has previously been a freelance sub-editor and chief sub-editor.
Kate's team at Digital Spy were proudly nominated in the Best Subbing/Production Team category at the BSME Talent Awards 2022. Over the years, she has contributed to coverage of many, many Prime Days and Black Friday/Cyber Monday, and was part of the team that launched the DS weekly TV newsletter in November 2019 – followed by the Top of the Shops e-commerce newsletter in May 2024.
Kate's screen passions include Taskmaster (their biggest career regret remains turning down the opportunity to visit the house), nature documentaries, and live sport (up there with the greatest of all soap operas although if asked to choose, it's Corrie… every time).
Her highlights while working at DS have included interviewing Stevie Nicks on the red carpet for her documentary In Your Dreams, sitting at a press roundtable with Formula 1 commentary icon Murray Walker, watching a life-sized LEGO car being driven around Silverstone, writing an album-by-album retrospective of Lady Gaga's genre-defying career for Living Legends, and raising awareness of receiving and understanding a late-in-life ADHD diagnosis through the lens of Bianca and Freddie's EastEnders storyline.
Upon remembering to log off the internet, Kate enjoys live theatre, dance and comedy, appreciating nature, baking (badly), tending a recently-rented allotment (equally badly) and pampering one very spoiled rescue cat named Jolene.
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