This is about growing all of auto racing, not just one race.
When the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans entry list comes out early next year, it is expected to include the most major manufacturer entries the race has seen since the ninties. Cars built to two different rule sets from Ferrari, Porsche, Cadillac, and Peugeot are expected to join Toyota at the 24-hour classic, while American entries from Acura and BMW could also join that group as early as next year. NASCAR is planning to bring a whole Camaro stock car, too. The event is setting up to be one of the biggest single days in modern racing for two years now, and yet we still have no guarantee that drivers from other series, even from the one that is partnering with one of their teams to bring one of their current competition cars to the race as a special entry, will actually have that week off to compete.
It would be impossible for drivers in IndyCar, NASCAR, or Formula 1 to participate in this year’s race. All three are racing during this year’s June 11th-12th race date: IndyCar is at Road America, NASCAR is at Sonoma, and F1 is in Azerbaijan. Even Formula E, which has long drawn from the same talent pool as sports car racing’s top level, is creating logistic challenges by asking drivers to race in Indonesia the day before LeMans’s June 5th official test day.
It wasn’t always like this. Not just in a long-gone golden age, either. Sure, the 1960s and 70s were dotted with open wheel greats like Dan Gurney and Bruce McLaren taking overall honors in France, but drivers were crossing over from those disciplines in-season in the past decade. Nico Hulkenburg ran a full, competitive season at Force India in F1 when he won this race overall with Porsche in 2015. IndyCar legend Scott Dixon ran four straight Le Mans with the Ford GT program from 2016 to 2019, including a 2018 season where he ran the race and won the IndyCar championship in the same season. We can blame the past two years on the 24 hour classic being re-scheduled around pandemic policy, but the race landed on its traditional date this year with just about every scheduling conflict possible.
IndyCar, in particular, seems to have a very easy choice here. GM, one of their two engine providers, is fully committed to sports car racing in both the U.S. and Europe in 2023, and their top team Chip Ganassi Racing has often made room for IndyCar drivers in their current DPi program. Honda, IndyCar’s other engine provider, is not a lock for Le Mans with their next generation of Acura racers yet, but one of their two current partner teams just won the Rolex 24 at Daytona with a lineup featuring two full-time IndyCar drivers. Even series owner Roger Penske has a team in both categories, including an upcoming Porsche program that is expected to be among the favorites for the 2023 race. And, yet, even IndyCar isn’t creating a clear path to Le Mans participation.
Jimmie Johnson, the seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and newly-converted full-time IndyCar driver, has close ties to two very different Le Mans programs in 2023. At Cadillac, he has for the past two years run part-time in a second prototype fielded by Action Express Racing. With Chevrolet, his name has constantly come up alongside past and current NASCAR stars as a potential driver in the once-in-a-generation Garage56 entry of a Next Gen Camaro stock car. Both paths to the 2023 race seem equally likely for Johnson, but IndyCar’s short-term business interests may be in the way. With television deals taking such a major voice in determining how schedules are made, he may not get the chance:
“I definitely have an interest in going. I think myself, and many others, are waiting to see the schedule from IndyCar in ’23 and see if it’s even an option. This year, it would not be an option. So, once that schedule comes out, there’s going to be a lot of drivers scrambling to find rides. I don’t know if that’s [Team owner and series executive Roger Penske’s] top priority, he has his program set on both sides and I don’t believe there’s really any crossover. At the end of the day, TV ultimately sets the tone. Roger and Penske Corp can influence, but TV’s going to do what’s best for TV.”
But, whether he’s in a stock car or the prototype racing or an overall win, Johnson still counts himself among the drivers hoping for an opportunity to race if the schedule opens up:
“The generation that I grew up watching, they’d go anywhere and race anything. That’s kind of what I’m trying to do now at this point in my career. If I can find a seat, I’ll take my helmet and go,” Johnson said.
Immediately after driving a winning closing stint at this year’s Rolex 24, 2021 Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves very publicly asked team co-owner Michael Shank to take Acura to Le Mans. Current IndyCar stars Pato O’Ward, Alex Palou, Colton Herta, and Simon Pagenaud all also ran competitive times in prototypes throughout the race. Current Haas F1 driver Kevin Magnussen was there too, although he did not know at the time that he would be returning to F1 this season. A grid like that is possible at Le Mans in June, and in 2023 that grid will have enough top-level prototypes that all of those drivers could be fighting for the overall win.
If these categories can look past their short-term interests and allow their talent to compete on a century-old stage on equal footing, all of racing would benefit. It just takes a little bit of cooperation, a little bit of planning ahead. Racing’s greatest stages are its single events, not any one series. Shouldn’t racing work to make those stages as great as possible?
Keyword: Every Racing Series Should Take Le Mans Off