The Audi R8 is a Le Mans Prototype sports-prototype race car introduced in 2000 for sports car racing as a redevelopment of their Audi R8R and Audi R8C used in 1999. In its class, it is one of the most successful racing sports cars having won the 24 Hours of Le Mans race in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, and 2005, five of the six years it competed in total. Its streak of Le Mans victories between 2000 and 2005 was broken only in 2003 by the Bentley Speed 8, another race car fielded that year by Volkswagen Group.
Tom Kristensen is a Danish former racing driver. He holds the record for the most wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with nine, six of which were consecutive. In 1997, he won the race with the Joest Racing team, driving a Tom Walkinshaw Racing-designed and Porsche-powered WSC95, after being a late inclusion in the team following Davy Jones' accident that eventually ruled him out of the race. All of his subsequent wins came driving an Audi prototype, except in 2003, when he drove a Bentley prototype. In both 1999 and 2007 Kristensen's team crashed out of comfortable leads in the closing hours of the race. He is considered by many to be the greatest driver ever to have raced in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The Bentley Speed 8 was an Autosport Award Winning Le Mans Prototype race car that was designed by Peter Elleray. The EXP Speed 8 debuted in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2001 and won the race in 2003. It has a strong resemblance to and shares some technology with the Audi R8C, which had raced only once before Audi dropped the project to focus on the later dominant Audi R8. The EXP Speed 8 marked Bentley's return to racing after a 73-year absence.
Guy James Mutlow Smith is a British professional racing driver and IB English teacher and coordinator in Brazil, who has competed in various levels of motorsport, most notably the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which he won in 2003, and the American Le Mans Series, which he won in 2011.
Steven Colin Kane is a British racing driver who currently competes in the Blancpain Endurance Series and Avon Tyres British GT Championship for M-Sport Bentley driving a Bentley Continental GT3.
Joest Racing is a German sports car racing team that was established in 1978 by former Porsche works racer Reinhold Joest. Their headquarters are in Wald-Michelbach, Germany.
The Flying Lizard Motorsports group is a motorsport team from Sonoma, California, formed by Seth Neiman in early 2003. The team competed in the full American Le Mans Series season, as well as the 24 Hours of Daytona, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The team went on to win six driver and team championships in the American Le Mans Series, becoming a Porsche factory team and Porsche Motorsport North America's development partner from 2007 to 2012. The team helped develop the first- and second-generation 997 GT3 RSR as well as bring it to victory several times in its six-year run in the series. The team solely raced Porsche cars from 2004 to 2019, becoming a staple in the Porsche racing community.
Porsche has been successful in many branches of motorsport of which most have been in long-distance races.
Richard Hugh Lloyd was a British racing car driver and founder of multiple sports car and touring car teams. He drove in multiple championships himself, including the British Saloon Car Championship and the World Endurance Championship.
The 2009 American Le Mans Series season was the 39th season for the IMSA GT Championship, with it being the eleventh season with the American Le Mans Series moniker. It began on March 21, 2009, and ended on October 10, 2009 after ten events. The series was composed of Le Mans Prototypes (LMP) and Grand Tourer (GT) race cars divided into four classes: LMP1, LMP2, GT1, and GT2. A fifth category, known as the Challenge class, was also added for select races and featured Porsche 997 GT3 Cup cars from the IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge. 2009 was also the final year for GT1, with Corvette Racing abandoning the class after Long Beach and switching over to much more competitive GT2 class.
Zakary Challen Brown is an American businessman and former professional racing driver, currently residing in England. He is the chief executive officer of McLaren Racing. Born and raised in California, Brown raced professionally around the world for ten years before developing his skills in motorsport's business and commercial worlds.
United Autosports is a sports car racing team based in Wakefield, England, United Kingdom, founded by businessman Zak Brown and former driver Richard Dean.
W Racing Team is a Belgian auto racing team founded in 2009 by engineer and former head of Volkswagen Motorsport René Verbist, racing driver Vincent Vosse, and entrepreneur Yves Weerts. Between 2010 and 2022 the team campaigned Audi R8 LMSs in several international sports car series. In 2010 the team won the Belcar Drivers' and Teams' Championships, while in 2011 they won the Spa 24 Hours. After winning multiple titles in various GT championships, WRT is considered to be one of the best teams worldwide in GT racing. In 2019 and 2020 WRT ran two Audi RS5 Turbo DTMs in the highly competitive DTM championship. In 2021 WRT added a full time LMP2 program, by entering an Oreca 07 in both the FIA World Endurance Championship and European Le Mans Series, and won the LMP2 class of the 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans. From 2023 on WRT switched their partnership in GT racing from Audi to BMW and will run the BMW M4 GT3. The team will also run two factory backed BMW M Hybrid V8s in the FIA World Endurance Championship Hypercar category from 2024.
The Audi R10 TDI is a sports prototype designed and built by Audi in partnership with Dallara. Built to the Le Mans Prototype 1 (LMP1) regulations, the R10 was highly successful throughout its career; the R10 became the first diesel-powered car to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2006, in what would be the first of three 24 Hours of Le Mans wins. Unveiled to the public on 13 December 2005 in Paris, the R10 would go on to win the 2006 24 Hours of Le Mans just 200 days later.
Rinaldo "Dindo" Capello is an Italian professional racing driver. He is a three-time winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with Bentley in 2003 and Audi in 2004 and 2008. Capello is a two-time American Le Mans Series champion, a five-time 12 Hours of Sebring winner, and the record holder for most wins at Petit Le Mans, having won five times. Capello has also raced in the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, the FIA World Endurance Championship, DTM and the Italian GT Championship.
Matthieu Vaxivière is a French racing driver from Limoges, who currently drives for Alpine in the Hypercar class of the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Andrew James "Andy" Meyrick is a British racing driver from Wales who currently competes in the European Le Mans Series for United Autosports.
The 2018 Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup was the eighth season of the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup. The season began on 22 April at Monza and ended on 30 September in Barcelona. The season featured five rounds, with each race lasting for a duration of three hours besides the 24 Hours of Spa and the 1000 km Paul Ricard events.
The 2019 Super GT Series was a motor racing championship based in Japan for grand touring cars. The series is sanctioned by the Japan Automobile Federation (JAF) and run by the GT Association (GTA). It was the twenty-seventh season of the Japan Automobile Federation Super GT Championship which includes the All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (JGTC) era and the fifteenth season the series has competed under the Super GT name. It was the thirty-seventh overall season of a national JAF sportscar championship dating back to the All Japan Sports Prototype Championship. The season began on April 14 and ended on November 24, after 8 championship races & 2 non-championship races.
Jules Jean-Louis Gounon is an Andorran-based French professional racing driver. He is best known for his victories in the 24 Hours of Spa in 2017 and 2022, and the Bathurst 12 Hour in 2020, 2022 and 2023.
Frank Biela 
John Bintcliffe 
Yvan Muller 
Stéphane Ortelli 
Butch Leitzinger 
Eric van de Poele 
