Zak Brown is seriously considering allowing Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to contest the Le Mans 24 Hours… and they’re up for it.
Back in the day, when they weren’t racing in F1, drivers would spend their ‘free’ weekends racing in all manner of other series, be it Endurance, Indy Car, Can-Am, F2 even Touring Cars.
The expansion of the F1 calendar, together with manufacturer and sponsor clashes, not to mention the increased risk of an accident – countless drivers were lost to the sport whilst contesting other series – the practice was phased out.
Disillusioned following McLaren’s second foray with Honda, Fernando Alonso reintroduced the concept, first contesting the Indy 500 – actually leading the race for 29 laps – before turning to Le Mans, which he won twice with Toyota.
Attending the opening of the World Endurance Championship in Qatar, McLaren boss, Zak Brown, who first suggested the idea of contesting the Indy 500 to the Spaniard, admitted that he is seriously considering allowing Norris and Piastri to contest Le Mans.
“I love the old school racing,” he told WEC TV, “the Mario Andrettis, Dan Gurneys… they ran in different formulas… Now, with how big the sport is corporately, you get into manufacturer conflicts, sponsor conflicts, calendar conflicts, and that’s why I loved racing with Fernando so much. Whether it’s Le Mans, Indy or Dakar, he just wants to race.
“I think we are very open-minded,” he continued. “Who doesn’t want to win Le Mans? I’ve talked to Lando and Oscar about it, and they’ve said they’d love to go race Le Mans. That’s cool, right? I think all these motorsports converging are great.
“We love sports car racing,” he said of McLaren. “We’re the only team to have won the ‘Triple Crown’, it’d be cool to go for it again. We’re impressed with the rules, the competition.”
It was the ‘Triple Crown’ – The Monaco Grand Prix, Indy 500 and Le Mans 24 Hours – that Alonso was targeting.
“It’s fair to say that LMGT3 was us dipping our toe back in the water,” said Brown, whilst hinting at a return in a different class. “It’s a fantastic class but it would certainly be nice to see a couple of other McLarens also at the top of a different leaderboard.
“I always get excited in June,” he admitted. “Le Mans is a must-attend. It’s a bummer it conflicts with the Montreal Grand Prix this year. But I can tell you I’ll be in France, not Canada. That’s a priority for us, with a nice display in the Le Mans Museum and hopefully we have some exciting stuff to talk about this year.”
Ferrari and Alpine are both currently contesting the Hypercars class, and Aston Martin will debut the Valkyrie at Le Mans, could this be what Brown is hinting at?
“We have certainly been reviewing it for quite some time and like what we see,” he admitted. “We just need to look at how we are doing in Formula 1 and IndyCar. I don’t think the timing has ever really been better.
“It’s clear what we would like to do. We’d love to go for the overall win in Le Mans and our other teams are very healthy.”
