It’s an approach which has had its criticisms, but one which has created varied results, battles on track and seen many of the world’s biggest car manufacturers return, including Peugeot, BMW, Porsche, General Motors, Lamborghini and last year’s shock Le Mans winners Ferrari.
Already this season, there have been three different winners from three different teams, including Jota, who are a customer of the works Porsche Penske team.
“You get pretty much the same platform or hardware as [a customer] and you have to get it tuned the best way possible. Every team has different philosophies,” adds Ilott, who has also raced in Formula 2 and had a stint as Alfa Romeo reserve driver in F1 before racing in IndyCar until this year.
“Hypercars are complex – there’s a lot of powertrain similarities to F1 cars, a lot of electronics… to have cars built in a completely different way to a similar specification, it is incredible to be racing so close. And there’s multiple categories [at Le Mans]… GT and LMP2 cars – a lot of different factors come into play with strategy.”
Regardless of who has qualified where on the grid, no one knows who will take victory after 24 hours of racing, and this unpredictability is a breath of fresh air to those who have moved over to endurance racing from F1.
“I think the [Ferrari 499P] is a great car to drive,” says Ferrari’s Antonio Giovinazzi, formerly of Sauber and Alfa Romeo in F1.
“It is more heavy [than an F1 car], but what I like is that you overtake cars every lap – it’s intense. I just love a championship where you share the car with three other drivers.”
