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About
Le Mans 1995
An Enduring Legacy
Every year for over a century. One legendary course. 24 hours.
It’s the ultimate test for the drivers and their team—there’s almost no margin for error, but the reward for pushing to the limits and taking bold risks is a place among racing legends. In three classes (LMGT3, LMP2 and Hypercar), teams battle it out for the title of race champion. For the world’s top manufacturers and best drivers, it’s the pinnacle of endurance.
To push the limits of speed, endurance and engineering you need not one, but three drivers working with a single machine they trust implicitly. Each stint behind the wheel takes strategy, stamina and split-second decisions. It’s a delicate balance of instinct and skill which determines the difference between survival and glory.
Gordon Murray
McLaren F1 Designer
circuit
The Circuit de la Sarthe
For a full day and night—from 4pm on Saturday to 4pm on Sunday—the Circuit de la Sarthe becomes the epicentre of endurance racing. At 13.626km, it’s one of the longest in the world. 4.5km of that is the smooth consistency of the Bugatti Circuit, but for the remaining 9km the cars prove themselves on public roads. And if racing through every condition at every time of day wasn’t enough of a challenge, the course keeps drivers on a razor’s edge.
Surrounded by spectators soaking up the festival atmosphere, the drivers speed through the track’s twists and turns, but it’s the Mulsanne Straight that’s most renowned. Initially holding the record for the longest straight section of track in the world, it’s now broken with two chicanes, which still doesn’t stop leading cars from reaching breathtaking top speeds of 320km/h.
From start to finish, it takes an expert driver in a hypercar less than three and a half minutes to drive the Circuit. Then they have to do it all again, as many times as they can.
Our legacy
The 24 Hours of Le Mans is in our DNA.
Our founder Bruce McLaren contested the event on eight occasions, winning on his sixth attempt in 1966 at the wheel of a works Ford.
The return of the McLaren name to the Circuit de la Sarthe has since become the stuff of automotive myth. Le Mans makes or breaks its competitors, and in the driving rain of June 1995, McLaren made it. In our manufacturer debut, with a production car up against Le Mans Prototypes, we beat the odds to take the race champion title and fill four of the five top spots. The F1 GTR has rightfully taken its place in the McLaren hall of fame, its legacy enduring far beyond that epic 24 hours.
Three decades on, our Le Mans story is still in the making. This year, McLaren-United Autosports will compete in the race with two GT3 EVOs at numbers #59 and #95—a nod to the 30th anniversary of the 1995 triumph. And, in 2027, we’re pursuing glory once more with a place on the Hypercar grid.
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