What’s happening?
In 2023, the 100th edition of the legendary race that ALL manufacturers and drivers want to win will take place, and I mean the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
It is organized by the “Automobile Club de l’Ouest” and takes place in the circuit made up of public neighborhood roads and permanent sections called the Sarthe, in the town of Le Mans, in France. The first race was held in the month of May 1923
I Showed
Cadillac Series 61 with an aerodynamic body created by Grumann Aircraft
Cadillac debuted in the grueling race in 1950 with a Series 61 with a strange experimental bodywork and driven by drivers Briggs Cunningham and Phill Waters, the bodywork was created by Grumann Aircraft and its forms were more focused on performance at high speeds than at a mere aesthetic beauty. The French, seeing the Caddy marked with the number 2 -which also looked like a 9- and not knowing the Cadillac brand, began to call it “Le Mostre” (The Monster) and to this day he is most remembered for his good performance finishing 11th in the general classification, after falling to 35th place and losing 20 minutes stuck on a dirt slope, Le Mostre is one of many, many stories and anecdotes that are woven in each of the editions of the 24 Hours… and to close the historical section of this note I share what all those involved in the 24 of Le Mans say… “A team does NOT win the 24 Hours, Le Mans DECIDE who will”
Let’s go back to 2023…
The Cadillac Racing lineup and thanks to the unification of categories, LMDh was created and are endorsed by the two most important endurance racing championships, the WEC (World Endurance Championship) that competes globally and IMSA (International Motor Sports Association) that competes only in USA. LMDh stands for Le Mans Daytona h, for Hypercar.
All three Cadillac V-Series.R race cars made their debuts at the 61st running of the Daytona 24 Hours, with the No. 01 Cadillac V-Series.R finishing the race on the podium. The No. 02 Cadillac V-Series.R placed fourth and the Whelen Engineering The No. 31 Cadillac V-Series.R finished in fifth. They will join other competitors in the class hypercar with revised car numbers for the 24 Hours of Le Mans and will compete for overall victory.
The LMDh Hypercar No. 2
The No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R received automatic entry based on its full-season participation in the FIA World Endurance Championship called WEC and the driving team of Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn and Richard Westbrook are the pilots.
The LMDh Hypercar No. 3
The No. 3 car is a regular entrant in the IMSA American Championship WeatherTech SportsCar and he runs with the number 01, but for the Le Mans date he will have the number 3 on his number. The drivers are Sébastien Bourdais -with extensive experience at Le Mans, Renger van der Zande -another dean of the 24- and Scott Dixon -who is not far behind in experience-.
The LMDh Hypercar No. 23
The third car is marked to compete in the 23rd Le Mans with the number 311 and defends the colors of the Whelen Engineering Cadillac V-Series.R team and is also a regular participant in the entire season of the American IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, where it races as the No. 31. Pipo Derani, Alexander Sims and Jack Aitken will drive.
Let’s learn more about the Caddy Hypercar of the stellar category of the “24”
The Cadillac V-Series.R design, jointly developed by Cadillac Design, Cadillac Racing and chassis builder Dallara, was informed by Project GTP Hypercar which was presented in June 2022.
Cadillac V-Series.R is powered by a 5.5L DOHC V8 engine developed by GM’s Racing Propulsion and Performance team based in Pontiac, Michigan.
The energy recovery system was developed by Bosch, Williams Advanced Engineering (now WAE) and Xtrac.
We are all looking forward to Cadillac’s return to Le Mans and we will be fighting for overall victory. It’s been decades since an American manufacturer has achieved this and we will be pushing hard to achieve our goal, said Earl Bamber, driver of car 2 and also two-time overall winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Cadillac V-Series.R began track development in July 2022 and logged over 12,400 miles [20,000 kilómetros] on race tracks across the US ahead of the Rolex 24 at Daytona 2023.
“It has been special to be a part of this from the beginning,” Bamber added. “We started this journey almost two years ago by running simulator tests. It’s been an amazing journey and the adventure is just beginning. It’s going to be amazing all the way to Le Mans.”
The highly anticipated 100th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans will take place on June 10 and 11, 2023 at the Circuit de la Sarthe in France.
