The completion of the 2024/25 Asian Le Mans Series finalised the 24 Hours of Le Mans invitations for the highly anticipated 2025 race.
Last weekend hosted the final two rounds of the AsLMS at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi.
Two action-packed four hour races last Saturday and Sunday concluded the AsLMS season total of six races across three venues, running a unique double-header set-up at each circuit.
Abu Dhabi’s finale confirmed the final selection of invitations to this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours which takes place in less than four months time on 14-15 June.
The AsLMS, like the European Le Mans Series, is governed by the Automobil Club l’Ouest (ACO) who above all, govern Le Mans events.
The World Endurance Championship is a partnership between the FIA and ACO and hosts the most historic endurance motor race on an annual basis.
Champions and selected winners across the ACO series, the North American IMSA SportsCar Championship et al, have fought hard to earn Le Mans invites where the outright maximum entry count is 62 across the Hypercar, LMP2 and LMGT3 categories.
A round-up of this year’s automatic Le Mans invites
- Algarve Pro Racing (First in AsLMS LMP2 category)
- Manthey (First in AsLMS GT category)
- AO by TF (First in ELMS LMP2 category)
- Inter Europol Competition (Second in ELMS LMP2 category)
- AF Corse (First in ELMS LMP2 Pro/Am category)
- RLR MSport (First in ELMS LMP3 category)
- Iron Lynx (First in ELMS LMGT3 category)
- Porsche Penske Motorsport (First in IMSA GTP category)
- Nick Boulle (IMSA Jim Trueman Award winner)
- Orey Fidani (IMSA Bob Akin Award winner)
- Sky Tempesta Racing (First in GTWCE Bronze Cup)
2024/25 Asian Le Mans Series
Two automatic invites were up for the taking in the 2024/25 campaign.
Algarve Pro Racing’s #25 Oreca 07 LMP2 won half of the races in the season and refused to finish outside of the top-five.
Co-drivers Malthe Jakobsen, Michael Jensen and endurance racing rookie Valerio Rinicella pushed the #25 Oreca to championship title victory after scoring fourth place on Sunday’s race.
On 109 points, the closest out of the 10 LMP2 entrants were the RD Limited (multiple 24-hour race winner Romain Dumas’ team) with James Allen, Fred Poordad and Tristan Vautier who scored third together in the final race, although this was not enough for the title.
The other invitation concerned the GT class champion which was the #10 Manthey Racing Porsche 911 GT3.R.
During the WEC’s maiden season in GT3 machinery (respectively called LMGT3), Manthey dominated the entire season having won the first LMGT3 title – and Le Mans.
Their success emerged as no surprise with previous LMGTE Pro works experience, though such domination in GT3 was more impressive than shocking.
Manthey’s #92 EMA Porsche secured second in the title standings which made it a 1-2 yet again after the 2024 WEC season.
They were, however, not able to match the #10 Porsche crew Antares Au and Manthey’s own reigning WEC LMGT3 champions Klaus Bachler and Joel Sturm.
The #10 Porsche team finished the standings on 86 points after winning the final race, as the #92 – including quintuple Le Mans winner Richard Lietz – situated on 76 points.
None were on offer for the seven LMP3 class entrants.
2024 European Le Mans Series
Five automatic invites have been secured during last year’s 2024 ELMS season which finished in Portimao, running four-hour racing events like the AsLMS.
More so, all such slots were mainly for prototype racing teams across LMP2, LMP2 Pro/Am and LMP3 with only with an LMGT3 one given to the class champion.
With 14 LMP2 teams and eight in the Pro/Am category, the 2024 ELMS was undeniably competitive across the all-Oreca 07 LMP2 grids.
An intense and thrilling season finale resulted in AO by TF (Sport)’s #14 Oreca securing the title with credit to Jonny Edgar, Louis Deletraz and Robert Kubica.
On 93 points, the #14 Oreca nosed out the #43 Inter Europol Competition team who secured this hard-fought vice-champion position with motive to add to their Centenary Le Mans win.
The LMP2 Pro/Am story ended unfortunately for Alex Quinn’s #20 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca who ran an impressive fuel-saving effort in his final stint but lost out on the title after having been unable to fend off the #77 Proton Competition team on the final lap.
Proton scored the race win although it was the #83 AF Corse co-drivers Francois Perrodo, Alessio Rovera and Matthieu Vaxiviere who won the Pro/Am title.
Nick Adcock, Michael Jensen and Gael Julien of RLR MSport‘s #15 Ligier JS P320 won the LMP3 title by one point against third-placed finishers Eurointernational (#11 Ligier) and an LMP2 Le Mans invite.
The Iron Lynx won the title – before the announced split between Iron Lynx and Lamborghini – by just two points on Kessel Racing’s #57 Ferrari 296 LMGT3.
Though Iron Lynx will have two WEC-entered Mercedes-AMG LMGT3s, they will have an additional third LMGT3 entrant at Le Mans.
2024 IMSA SportsCar Championship and GTWCE Bronze Cup
Three automatic invitations were up for offer during last year’s IMSA campaign which ended with the annual running of Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta.
First of all, Porsche Penske landed a Hypercar slot for Le Mans after they secured the GTP championship title whereas in the year prior, Whelen Cadillac Racing got their spot for a red V-Series.R at the 2024 Le Mans race.
With two full-season WEC Hypercar entrants, Porsche’s third 963 will prove opportunistic for their winning chances against the trio of Ferrari 499Ps and two Toyota GR010 Hybrids amidst plenty of competition.
Nick Boulle was the highest-scoring FIA Bronze-graded driver in the LMP2 category having won the title with the #52 Inter Europol by PR1 Mathiasen partnership.
The Jim Trueman award winner will chose what team to pursue his own Le Mans invitation with – likely hinting towards Inter Europol Competition over his current IMSA team, United Autosports.
In the GTD category, the highest finishing Bronze driver was Orey Fidani who co-piloted the #13 AWA Corvette Z06 GT3.R with recent Daytona 24 Hours winner Matt Bell to become the 2024 Bob Akin Award winner.
In the 2024 GT World Challenge Europe series run by the SRO Motorsports Group, Sky Tempesta Racing won the Bronze Cup in the combined Endurance and Sprint championship standings.
Expect the provisional entry list for the 93rd running of the Le Mans 24 Hours to be released on 3 March, after the WEC Qatar 1812 km season-opener on 28 February.
READ MORE: Five new stories to follow in the 2025 WEC season
