24 Hours of Le Mans: 47 teams, 8 motorcycle brands, 23 nations / World Endurance Championship

Preparations for the 2024 World Endurance Championships are in full swing. About three weeks before the start of the World Cup in Le Mans, the organizer Automobile Club de l’Ouest has published the list of participants in collaboration with Warner Bros. Discovery Sports, which is entering its tenth season as the series’ promoter.

Everyone who is qualified in the area of ​​endurance will cover the worship event on April 20 at 3 am in front of tens of thousands of enthusiastic spectators. 47 teams with riders from 23 countries and eight motorcycle brands have submitted their entries for the race at the 4.185 km Circuit Bugatti.

The list of winning contenders is, as always, long. The Official Yamalube YART Yamaha EWC Team enters the year to defend its title and for the fourth team of drivers Marvin Fritz, Karel Hanika, Niccolò Canepa and Robin Mulhauser, the priority is to finish the regular endurance race as winners for the second time after 2009.

BMW Motorrad World Endurance (Markus Reiterberger, Ilya Mikhalchik, Sylvain Guintoli) and FCC TSR Honda France (Mike Di Meglio, Josh Hook, Alan Techer), third and fourth respectively from last year’s season, want to make things as difficult as possible for team from Austria. This applies not only to the Le Mans race, but to the entire world championship.

Not forgetting the Yoshimura SERT Motul team with Gregg Black, Etienne Masson and newcomer Dan Linfoot, which is not only based at Le Mans, but also recorded the most wins on its home track. Even after 17 world titles, Suzuki’s squad is still hungry for success.

Having just won the Bol d’Or 2022, the Honda Viltaïs Racing team will be among the favourites. This year the driver team again has Florian Alt, Leandro Mercado and Steven Odendaal, who are now well coordinated. Therefore, the top position will not be surprising.

From a German-speaking perspective, Team Bolliger Switzerland (Nico Thöni, Pedro Romero, Marcel Brenner, Alex Toledo) and Motobox Kremer, which relies on four German riders for the first time with Daniel Rubin, Dominik Vincon, Marco Fetz and Bastian Ubl . , should also be mentioned. A win for one of these teams might be one of the biggest emotions, but it’s not a top 10 result.