Trio of Porsche 963s and Cadillac V-Series.Rs going to Le Mans

Remember how this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans is going to be amazing? New Hypercar class, many entrants gunning for glory? Well Porsche and Cadillac have seen this glut of competition and decided to throw three cars each at the problem. Yikes.

Not unheard of, of course, but the commitment is noteworthy. Porsche will send two of its 963s from the World Endurance Championship and another from the IMSA WeatherTech Championship from across the pond.

The #5 entry will be driven by Dane Cameron, Michael Chistensen and Frederic Makowiecki, while the #6 car will be piloted by Kevin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor and three-time Le Mans winner Andre Lotterer.

The third 963 - given the #75 to mark three-quarters-of-a-century of Porsche - is set to be commanded by ex F1 driver Felipe Nasr and two teammates yet to be announced.

Oh, and before we forget, there’s actually a fourth 963. Though this one’s being entered by a customer team. Hertz Team JOTA is running this one, with Antonio Felix da Costa, Will Stevens and Yifei Ye behind the wheel.

“For us, it’s all about maximising our chances of scoring our 20th overall victory at Le Mans on the 75th anniversary of the Porsche brand,” explained vice president of Porsche Motorsport Thomas Laudenbach. “That’s why we’re fielding a third car. The history of the race has shown that the additional cars deployed are often the factor that ultimately tips the scales.

There you go then. Meanwhile Cadillac is thinking along much the same lines, with two cars from IMSA and one from WEC. Remember three V-Series.Rs made their racing debut at Daytona last month, with one finishing on the podium.

“We are thrilled to return to the 24 Hours of Le Mans with the full Cadillac Racing team,” said Cadillac’s global vice president Rory Harvey. “Over the last 20 years Cadillac Racing has built a legacy of winning on the track and we feel very privileged to return to Le Mans during this exciting new electrified era in racing.”

The #2 V-Series.R will be driven by Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn and Richard Westbrook; the #3 by Sebastien Bourdais, Renger van der Zande and Scott Dixon, and lastly the #3 Wheelen Engineering entry by Pipo Derani, Alexander Sims and Jack Aitken.

By our reckoning that takes the total number of Hypercar entries up to 16, with Glickenhaus, Peugeot, Ferrari, Toyota and (apparently) Vanwall all confirmed on the entry list. And every one of them with a shot of victory (in theory). Bring on 10-11 June!