Was the new qualifying format at the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans a success?

A new qualifying format was implemented for the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans in a bid to offer more intrigue to spectators across the opening two days of the event.

For the 93rd running of the iconic endurance race, a new qualifying format made its debut for all three classes taking part to essentially mimic the Q1-Q2-Q3 system used in Formula 1.

The ‘Q1’ aspect of qualifying was run on the Wednesday, though for the first time the classes were split into two half-hour sessions - one for LMP2/LMGT3 and one for Hypercar.

At the end of this session, the fastest 15 Hypercars advanced to the Hyperpole session on Thursday evening, while 12 from LMP2 and LMGT3 went through.

In Hyperpole, two 15-minute sessions ran in 2025 - H1 and H2. The slowest five cars in Hypercar did not advance to H2, while the slowest four in LMP2/LMGT3 also didn’t go any further.

The idea behind this was to give more cars a chance at fighting for pole to boost the spectacle for fans and give the first two days of the event more importance.

And there was some drama. The No.7 Toyota failed to advance out of the initial phase of qualifying due to Nyck de Vries catching yellow flags on his best lap.

Later on, the No.6 Porsche Penske Motorsport car was disqualified from the result for a weight limit infringement - dumping it to the back of the Hypercar grid. In Hyperpole itself, the race-winning No.83 AF Corse Ferrari didn’t get through to H2, neither did the factory No.51 Ferrari.

Pole was taken for the first time by Cadillac, after Alex Lynn guided the Jota-run No.12 car to lead a 1-2 for the marque. In LMGT3, Valentino Rossi went up against a number of higher-graded drivers to qualify the No.46 WRT BMW third on the grid in what was hailed as a “mega” lap.

Rossi found himself in that position as a result of WRT electing to use Kelvin van der Linde - a higher FIA Platinum grade driver - to get out of the H1 session. As part of the rules, the same driver is not allowed to take part in both Hyperpole sessions. This created strategy intrigue across the classes.

Ultimately, qualifying mattered little in the final result. The No.83 AF Corse Ferrari came from 13th to win, while the No.6 Porsche worked its way to second. Neither of the pole cars in LMP2 and LMGT3 won either.

But as far as a first try for the new qualifying rules go, organisers can consider it a success.

What needs to improve in the Le Mans qualifying format?

No.8 Toyota runner Brendon Hartley was full of praise of the new qualifying format, though suggested a tweak to ensure all three drivers in a car must be used across qualifying, H1 and H2.

“I think it’s cool,” Hartley told Crash.net. “I’m liking the new format. I think it’s pretty cool that you have to pick two different drivers for H1 and H2. I would even argue that over the three sessions you have to use three different drivers.

“I think it would add a bit of spice to the mix and the teams would have to strategise how much emphasis you put on qualy sims: do you give one to each driver, how confident are you? I think that would spice it up even more.”

The No.7 Toyota was the biggest loser from qualifying this year, but Mike Conway believes splitting the classes was “good progress” to allow the Hypercars to really be pushed to the limit. However, he also thinks that too much emphasis is being put on qualifying, which means you are “losing track time” to better prepare for the race.

“I think if you went back a few years ago, you were always screaming that we split the categories so we really see the lap times that can be done,” he said. “Because there were so many years that you never saw the actual lap time because of traffic or… there was always something, you’d never really get a clear lap.

“So, I think it’s definitely made some good progress. I don’t know, I think maybe there’s a bit too much emphasis on qualifying now and you’re losing the track time to really prep for the race.

“Let’s see how it unfolds and what the fans think, because I guess ultimately they will have final say.”