24 Hours of Le Mans

78 entries filed for the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2005

78 entries have been filed for this 73rd edition of the “24 Heures du Mans”. With 71 entries in 2003 and 77 entries last year the interest of teams to participate in the greatest endurance race in the world is still strong.

Last week 15 competitors were already accepted. These were teams that have met the ACO’s selection criteria based on their results in the ALMS, LMES, FIA GT Championship and last years edition of the 24 hours of Le Mans. With a total of 50 cars to participate, it now comes to the difficult task for the ACO selection committee to select the teams for the remaining 35 positions on the grid.

The committee will meet at the end of February to produce a first provisional list. Followed with an inspection of newly introduced models, such as the Lola LMP2 and the Aston Martin DBR9, both competing in the ALMS season opener in Sebring on March 19th, the final list will be drawn up. At the end of March this official list of the fifty cars, selected for the test day and the official race, will be communicated. Eight reserves will be added to the official list, two more than last year.

Compared to the last years, when the prototypes dominated slightly (40 prototypes versus 37 GT cars), the tendency reversed: 19 LMP1 and 18 LMP2, that is to say 37 prototypes, filed a request, against 41 Grand Touring cars (15 GT1 and 26 GT2).