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Meet All the Thrilling Ex-F1 Drivers Racing in Le Mans 24 Hours
Highlights
- 16 former F1 drivers compete in 2026 Le Mans 24 Hours
- Kamui Kobayashi drives #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid
- Nyck de Vries shares Toyota car, raced F1 with Williams
- Kevin Magnussen joins BMW Hypercar after retiring from F1
- Antonio Giovinazzi and Robert Kubica race for Ferrari Hypercar
- 62 cars and 186 drivers compete at Circuit de la Sarthe
Sixteen former Formula 1 drivers contest the 2026 Le Mans 24 Hours at Circuit de la Sarthe, with 62 cars and 186 drivers, per our ex-F1 preview for context.
Toyota again anchors the Hypercar fight. Kamui Kobayashi returns in the #7 GR010 Hybrid, combining team-lead duties with driving after a 75‑start F1 career from 2009–2014.
16 former F1 drivers headline the 94th Le Mans across 62 cars and 186 drivers.
Nyck de Vries shares the #7 Toyota. He debuted for Williams at Monza 2022, scored ninth, then left AlphaTauri in 2023 before rebuilding momentum in endurance racing.
Sebastien Buemi fronts the #8 Toyota after three F1 seasons with Toro Rosso. He brings four Le Mans wins and four WEC titles, providing Toyota’s reliability and pace benchmark.
Brendon Hartley partners Buemi in the sister #8. His three Le Mans victories and proven stint discipline strengthen Toyota’s multi-car strategy while Kobayashi leads operations from the #7 garage.
Kevin Magnussen joins BMW’s #15 M Hybrid V8 after his 2024 F1 retirement. With 185 starts and IMSA mileage, he must master hybrid deployment and traffic management at Le Mans.
Toyota targets control through the #7 and #8 GR010s, blending leadership, reliability and proven Le Mans winning pedigree.
Andre Lotterer leads Genesis’s #17 GMR-001 effort. A triple Le Mans winner with a 2014 Caterham cameo, his experience stabilizes a developing programme confronting Hypercar’s relentless pace demands.
Ferrari fields Antonio Giovinazzi in the #51 499P, a 2023 Le Mans winner. Robert Kubica continues Ferrari’s Hypercar programme, adding last season’s victory to his injury-interrupted F1 résumé.
Cadillac fields Sebastien Bourdais and Will Stevens. Peugeot lines up Paul di Resta and Stoffel Vandoorne. Aitken, Doohan, Fittipaldi and Sargeant deepen a stacked grid on the official entry list for full details.
Ferrari’s Giovinazzi and Kubica return to Le Mans as recent winners within the 499P Hypercar programme.
Early benchmarks emerge from Hyperpole, underlining a tight performance spread and execution sensitivity, as covered in our Le Mans Hyperpole analysis and qualifying build-up earlier this week.
Race pace will hinge on stint length, tyre management, FCY timing and traffic. Ex‑F1 drivers’ systems knowledge should aid energy targets and pit execution across changeable night conditions.
The 24-hour contest rewards discipline over flashes of speed. Expect strategy divergence between Toyota, Ferrari, BMW and Cadillac as former F1 names chase decisive stints into Sunday morning.
Visual Summary
Le Mans 24H
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F
7
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LMP
16 Ex-F1 Drivers
Former Formula 1 stars
climb endurance racing’s biggest challenge:
Le Mans 24 Hours
climb endurance racing’s biggest challenge:
Le Mans 24 Hours
8Le Mans wins
16Ex-F1 drivers
186 total drivers
F1
Le Mans
F1 careers may end—but the journey to glory at Le Mans climbs ever higher.
94th Le Mans 24 Hours — June 13–14, 2026
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