While Lamborghini’s history isn’t filled with motorsports accolades like its other Italian rivals, that doesn’t mean the brand doesn’t have some Le Mans pedigree in them. It’s that most of those efforts that did make it to the famous French track have been entirely privateer entries with little to no factory backing. Now, Lamborghini and their Squadra Corse aim to enhance their current sports car program with a factory backed LMDh prototype that also builds on their electrified and hybrid powertrain future.
LMDh, What?
LMDh—or Le Mans Daytona hybrid, if you’re unfamiliar with the class—is a merging of the current prototype class you see at Le Mans and the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) with IMSA’s Daytona Prototype class that’s been around since the Grand Am sports car racing era here in the U.S. It’s not going to be a weird merging of the physical cars, but rather a new ruleset that allows IMSA’s upcoming GTP class and WEC’s Hypercar class to race together at Le Mans with only minor tweaks to the cars themselves. Many of the main manufacturers that compete in the Prototype categories in IMSA and in WEC have made announcements, but Lamborghini will be a new manufacturer here, after competing in IMSA’s GTD class since 2015.
A Complicated History
This won’t be Lamborghini’s first time at Le Mans, but it will be the first time they have competed at Circuit de la Sarthe—the proper name for the 24 Hours of Le Mans track—as a factory team. The first time a Lamborghini raced at the legendary circuit was in 1975 with Paul Rilly and Roger Le Veve driving a V-12 powered Lamborghini Islero 400 GT in the GTX class. Unfortunately, it never took a true competitive lap as it crashed in a practice session just before the race. After that, a Diablo Jota was built to race in 1995, but it also never made a competition lap as Amos Racing—who was contracted to build the car for Lamborghini—and Lamborghini ran into a dispute before the race and prevented it from running.
The more successful entries was the Japanese Lamborghini Owner’s Club (JLOC) and their version of the Murcielago R-GT—developed by German tuner, Reiter Engineering, and renamed as the RG-1LM—would run in the 2006 race. Unfortunately, it was excluded as it did not meet the minimum lap requirement to be classified. The following year, the JLOC effort was enhanced by bringing on the Driot Associes Motor Sport (DAMS), a French racing team started by Jean-Paul Driot. However, it crashed during practice and, while DAMS was able to repair it for race day, it only completed a single lap before the gearbox broke and ended their heroic comeback.
2024 and LMDh
With Lamborghini aiming to convert their lineup to electrified power, their entry into LMDh couldn’t be more fitting. However, their effort won’t just be at the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans. Lamborghini plans to run in WEC and IMSA, asl well, so it can compete for wins in the “Triple Crown” of endurance racing: the Daytona 24 Hours, the Sebring 12 Hours, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. To be able to pull that off will be a momentous effort as there will be manufacturers with not only more experience with hybrid-powertrains in motorsports but also more experience in racing at la Sarthe.
Entries proposed for the 2024 LMDh class include BMW, Alpine, Toyota, and Porsche which all have years, if not decades, of data and experience from their own efforts at the legendary French endurance race. There could be entries from Acura, Cadillac, Peugeot, and Glickenhaus that could also show up for the 2024 races, as well, just to add more cars that Lamborghini’s team would need to deal with.
It’s not impossible, as Lamborghini does have great success at the 24 Hours of Daytona in GTD, taking class wins three years in a row in 2018, 2019, and 2020—making them the first ever manufacturer to do so. It’s just going to be tough for a manufacturer with little Le Mans experience, in a brand new car, with a new powertrain type for them in both their road cars and race cars to pull off. Even so, 2024’s LMDh and its localized variants are making for a very exciting year in sports car endurance racing.
Keyword: Lamborghini to Race the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2024 As Part of EV Shift