24 Hours of Le Mans: Cadillac, BMW and Toyota still in front

At the 2026 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the action continued into the night. Extremely fast lap times were set - and it was important to have the right tyre compound strapped on at the right time, with the softest compound being used in most cases. Three brands are still at the top of the standings: Cadillac, Toyota and BMW.

In the lead is the Cadillac V-Series.R of Norman Nato, Will Stevens and Louis Delétraz. However, the sister car of Earl Bamber, Sébastien Bourdais and Jack Aitken was slightly faster at the start. But their Le Mans suffered a severe setback at around 4.00 a.m. when there was a problem with the power steering. The repair caused the car to fall back hopelessly - the Cadillac was then withdrawn at around 8:00 in the morning.

With the TR010 Hybrid of Brendon Hartley, Ryo Hirakawa and Sébastien Buemi, Toyota is still fully involved in the action and is only just behind the leading Cadillac of Nato/Stevens/Delétraz. The Japanese had initially moved to the front with the right strategic decisions - but apart from that, Toyota's race pace is definitely good.

This is also proven by the second TR010 Hybrid of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries, currently in fourth place. BMW is still right in the thick of the action with the M Hybrid V8 of Robin Frijns, René Rast and Sheldon van der Linde. Quite a few people at Le Mans see the Bavarian car as the biggest favourite for victory. However, BMW also suffered a setback in the evening when the sister car of Kevin Magnussen, Raffaele Marciello and Dries Vanthoor with Vanthoor at the wheel had a collision with an LMP2 and suffered tyre damage. As a result, a top position is no longer possible for this M Hybrid V8.

Standings at Le Mans after almost 16 hours of racing