Every Woman Who Raced at the 2026 24 Hours of Le Mans
From a heartbreaking DNF to a top-ten finish and a historic Grand Marshal role, here's the full story of every woman at the 2026 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The 24 Hours of Le Mans is more than the pinnacle of endurance racing or a coveted leg of the Triple Crown. Beyond the technical demands and on-track unpredictability, the event in La Sarthe, which concluded its 94th edition this past weekend, holds a rich history of female representation.
Since the inaugural race in 1923, 64 women have taken the start, including 27 all-female crews and a record 10 female entrants in 1935 alone. In recent years, the grid has featured highly competitive all-female line-ups, with the Iron Dames emerging as one of the most recognisable names in the paddock.
But 2026 presented a different reality. Only two female drivers debuted in the main event, alongside a handful of appearances in the Road to Le Mans support series and a few familiar faces making history throughout the week.
Despite the lower numbers, every woman has a story of reaching one of the most demanding endurance events in the world. This piece not only chronicles how their weekend unfolded, but celebrates their journey to — or return to — the pinnacle of endurance racing.
The 24 Hours of Le Mans Explained
The 24 Hours of Le Mans can feel daunting to watch. If you relate, here is a quick explainer on how the event operates.
The Track
Drivers tackle the Circuit de la Sarthe, an 8.4-mile (13.6 km) layout in France blending a permanent racing facility with ordinary public roads. Organisers shut down local streets to create high-speed sections like the famous Mulsanne Straight.
The Three Classes
Le Mans features three different categories of cars competing simultaneously. Teams fight for a class victory, while the fastest contenders aim for the overall win. In 2026, the 62-car grid were broken down into the following:
Hypercar (18 cars): The top tier. Manufacturers like Ferrari, Toyota, Cadillac, Aston Martin, and more build bespoke prototypes to chase overall victory. As the fastest machines on the grid, they often feature hybrid technology.
LMP2 (19 cars): The second prototype tier (Le Mans Prototype 2). Every team uses the Oreca 07 chassis and a standard Gibson V8 engine. With standardised hardware, success comes down entirely to strategy and driver skill. Line-ups with a Bronze driver have their own specific ranking: LMP2 Pro/Am.
LMGT3 (25 cars): Based on supercars from brands like Porsche, McLaren, and Corvette, these vehicles are heavily modified for competition. They are the slowest class but regularly deliver the tightest wheel-to-wheel racing.
Since the World Endurance Championship (WEC) dropped LMP2 from its full-season calendar after 2023, the 24 Hours of Le Mans is the only race of the year where all three classes still share the track.
The 2026 Format
Race week still progressed from practice to qualifying, but qualifying in Le Mans is a beast of its own. This year, organisers introduced a high-stakes, three-part format.
Every car participated in a 30-minute qualifying session on Wednesday. Only the top 15 Hypercars and top 12 cars in the lower classes advanced, with Hyperpole 1 and Hyperpole 2 trimming the field even further.
The defining change for 2026 involved driver allocation. The driver who qualified the car on Wednesday could not drive in Hyperpole 1. Furthermore, anyone who drove in the first two sessions was restricted from driving in Hyperpole 2.
This forced teams to rely on the outright pace of their entire three-driver lineup rather than leaning on a single qualifying specialist.
The Only Two Women Racing In The 2026 24 Hours of Le Mans
The 2026 24 Hours of Le Mans main event featured just two female drivers, alongside a handful who joined the Road to Le Mans support series.
Doriane Pin: LMP2 (Duqueine Team)
The 2025 F1 ACADEMY Champion and current Mercedes Development Driver is no stranger to endurance racing. She joined the Iron Dames programme in 2021 and quickly built an impressive track record.
At 17, the French racer debuted alongside Manuela Gostner in the 2021 Michelin Le Mans Cup (MLMC) and secured five podium finishes in her first six races. In 2022, she dominated the Ferrari Challenge Europe Series, winning nine of 14 races to secure the Trofeo Pirelli with a round to spare.
The 2026 event marked her third overall appearance at Le Mans. She debuted in the LMP2 class with Prema Racing in 2023, but broken ribs forced her to withdraw from Iron Dames’s LMGT3 entry just weeks before the race. The “Pocket Rocket” then sat out the following year to focus entirely on her F1 ACADEMY campaign.
Driving in the ultra-competitive LMP2 category with Duqueine Team, Doriane and her teammates held the lead for 21 hours, while she consistently clocked some of the fastest lap times on the grid. Unfortunately, to win at Le Mans, you must first finish. A front brake disc failure turned what looked like a guaranteed victory into a painful DNF.
Lilou Wadoux: LMGT3 (Richard Mille AF Corse)
Lilou is the first woman in Ferrari’s storied history to hold the prestigious role of an official Ferrari factory driver.
Behind the wheel, her adaptability speaks for itself. She became the first woman to win the LMP2 class in the American IMSA series (at the 6 Hours of Watkins Glen) and the first to score a podium in Japan’s highly competitive Super GT championship (GT300 class).
By winning the LMGTE Am class alongside her teammates at the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps in 2023, she also became the first female driver to win an FIA WEC class race since the championship was formed in 2012.
The 2026 event marked her fourth Le Mans appearance. Competing in LMGT3 with Richard Mille AF Corse, the French driver anchored a fierce recovery drive with relentless night stints. By Sunday morning, her pace in the darkness had pulled the #150 Ferrari into the battle for a top-ten result. They crossed the finish line to secure an eighth-place finish in their class.
Road to Le Mans Series
After running as two sprint races in previous seasons, the flagship round of the MLMC adopted a three-hour endurance format for the first time. This support series ran shortly before the main race on Saturday.
Léna Bühler: LMP3 (R-ace GP)
The inaugural F1 ACADEMY Vice Champion traded the traditional single-seater ladder for a successful pivot to endurance racing.
In 2025, Bühler became the first woman to win in the MLMC — a standout moment during her debut year in LMP3 prototypes. Driving for 23Events Racing, she also secured fifth-place finishes at both Spa and Silverstone, claiming seventh in her class by the end of the season.
Her return to the 2026 Road to Le Mans proved frustrating. Constant stoppages broke up the three-hour race, including multiple Slow Zones, Full Course Yellows, and a 20-minute Safety Car period triggered by the #97 CLX Motorsport Ligier’s heavy crash at the Porsche Curves.
Reuniting with R-ace GP alongside Zack Scoular in the #86 Duqueine D09, the fragmented running made it difficult to find a rhythm. In the end, they finished 13th in class and currently sit eighth in the standings.
Denise Yeung: LMP3 Pro-Am (Team Virage)
The Hong Kong native broke new ground for Asian representation in European endurance racing as the first Chinese woman to compete in the Road to Le Mans. The 2026 event marked her debut at the Circuit de la Sarthe and her first-ever Le Mans Cup round.
A mother of three in her 50s, Yeung entered the race to show her children that “age is just a number.” She spent over a decade racing in Asian touring cars and GT series, including stints in the all-female Kyojo Cup and Chinese F4.
Partnering with one of the category’s strongest organisations, Team Virage, Yeung shared an LMP3 Pro-Am entry with British driver Theo Micouris. Unfortunately, the Hong Kong driver sustained injuries from an accident in Free Practice 1. With regulations mandating that both drivers share driving duties for the main race, the team was forced to withdraw before the start.
Other Appearances
Beyond those racing in the main and support series, there were a few other memorable moments from the weekend worth mentioning.
Jamie Chadwick: Reserve Driver (Genesis Magma Racing)
Since December 2024, the three-time W Series champion has been part of Genesis Magma Racing’s Trajectory Programme. Genesis represents Hyundai’s luxury division, with Genesis Magma Racing serving as the brand’s official in-house factory team for endurance racing.
Alongside her hypercar driver and development role, she was announced as the team’s reserve driver for their WEC campaign this year.
During Test Day, she made history in the Hypercar class by completing five laps in the #17 GMR-001-Hypercar. The run marks a step up from her LMP2 appearance with IDEC Sport at last year’s event.
Sarah Bovy: Grand Marshal for 2026 24 Hours of Le Mans
The Belgian native is one of the most successful figures in modern endurance racing. Best known for her role with the all-female Iron Dames outfit, she has anchored the team’s lineups for years across the WEC, European Le Mans Series, and GT World Challenge Europe.
With Iron Dames, she has achieved several historic milestones. In 2022, Bovy became the first woman to claim pole in WEC at Monza. A year later, she played an instrumental role in the team’s historic victory as an all-female squad in Bahrain.
Speaking of Le Mans, Bovy has contested the legendary endurance race five times. This year, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest — the creator and organising body behind the event — appointed her as Grand Marshal. As part of her role, Bovy had the honour of setting the pace for the 62 cars on the grid during the starting procedure.
A Dip In Numbers
By the numbers, the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans featured a much stronger female presence and a flurry of firsts compared to this year.
In the main event, Jamie Chadwick made her Le Mans debut with IDEC Sport, becoming the first woman to race in the LMP2 class since 2022. Lilou Wadoux made her third career appearance in LMGT3, representing Richard Mille AF Corse. Meanwhile, the Iron Dames fielded an all-female crew of Rahel Frey, Célia Martin, and Sarah Bovy, racing a Porsche 911 GT3 R in LMGT3.
In the Road to Le Mans support series, two drivers made their debuts in the flagship MLMC round. Léna Bühler made history as the first woman to win a race overall in the series, taking victory in the #50 Ligier JS P325 for 23Events Racing alongside teammate Matteo Quintarelli during her rookie campaign in LMP3 machinery.
Canadian racing driver and team owner Samantha Tan, 27, secured strong sixth and fourth-place finishes in her first-ever Road to Le Mans appearance. She teamed up with Swedish driver Gustav Bergstrom in the #38 BMW M4 GT3 run by Team WRT.
Still, this year’s dip in numbers shouldn’t dilute the magnitude of each racer reaching one of the world’s most demanding endurance events. After all, the 24 Hours of Le Mans has seen 64 women take the start, including 27 all-female crews — an encouraging reminder that Le Mans is always ready to embrace anyone up for the challenge.
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