Brown says McLaren F1 drivers keen to race at Le Mans

Will we see McLaren’s Formula 1 drivers take on the Le Mans 24 Hours in the future? With the Woking-based brand appearing poised to enter the FIA World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar ranks in the coming years, they may get the chance, and according to Zak Brown, the CEO of McLaren Racing, they’re keen to take on the challenge that the French endurance classic presents.

Speaking with WEC TV during the opening round of the 2025 season in Qatar this afternoon, Brown (pictured above) noted that both Lando Norris (who previously took part in the Rolex 24 At Daytona back in 2018 with United Autosports) and Oscar Piastri have ambitions to race at La Sarthe.

“I love the old school racing — the Mario Andrettis, Dan Gurneys, they ran in different formulas,” he said. “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 (Alonso) so much. Whether it’s Le Mans, Indy or Dakar, he just wants to race.

“But I think we are very open-minded. 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.”

In the same conversation, Brown also teased we may hear more about McLaren’s future in sports car racing this year in June.

The 2025 edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours will see McLaren celebrate the 30th anniversary of its famous overall win with the F1 GTR. And it will of course have a chance to add to its success at the event with the pair of LMGT3 entries fielded by Brown’s United Autosports team, which he co-owns with Richard Dean.

“We love sports car racing,” Brown said. “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’s fair to say that LMGT3 was us dipping our toe back in the water. 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. 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.

“We have certainly been reviewing it for quite some time and like what we see. 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.

“I think 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.”