The biggest race in the world? The 24 Hours of Le Mans is this weekend.

LMGT3

The final category is for cars that started life as true road cars. In the past, Le Mans has had various different flavors of what the sport calls GT cars, some more specialized than others. Eventually the costs became too much for GT1, then GT2 (later called GTE, or GTLM in IMSA), and in 2024 the ACO decided to import the GT3 category, which was created back in 2005 by Stéphane Ratel as a way to make sports car racing less expensive for amateurs. (NB: less expensive is not the same thing as cheap.)

Under the old system (GT1 and GT2), the ACO published a rulebook with acceptable modifications; automakers would build their cars to those rules and then go racing to see who was fastest. But each race can only have one winner, and if one make starts to dominate, their rivals will either start spending more, driving up costs for everyone, or give up and do something else instead. GT3 solved that problem, again with balance of performance.

Each OEM builds their new car, then it’s benchmarked against the class, and the power and weight are adjusted to keep it in the right range. Different cars will make their lap times differently, and some cars will be better at particular tracks than others, but the category has been a worldwide success. And you can race a GT3 car at the Rolex 24 at Daytona or the Spa 24 Hours or the Nurburgring 24, as well as shorter but no less grueling events like the Bathurst 12 hours or the 12 Hours of Sebring, not to mention numerous other series and events. There are 25 LMGT3 cars in this year’s race, all from pro-am teams that must have at least one bronze and one silver driver among the crew.

An assortment of GT3 cars during testing.

Credit: Photography/Getty Images

Further reading

Millions or perhaps even billions of words have been spent over Le Mans across its 94 runnings, some better than others. I can highly recommend Richard Williams’ recent book 24 Hours, written for the race’s centenary year in 2023.

The race begins at 4 pm local time tomorrow—10 am Eastern, 7 am Pacific—and you can watch it in the US on HBO or Tru, or finally via the FIAWEC+ streaming service, which is no longer geoblocked. There’s also the excellent Radio Le Mans commentary, which is broadcast free online.