2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

The 89th 24 Hours of Le Mans (French: 89^e 24 Heures du Mans) was a 24-hour automobile endurance race for teams of three drivers each entering Le Mans Prototype (LMP) and Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance (LMGTE) cars held between 21 and 22 August 2021, at the Circuit de la Sarthe, close to Le Mans, France, before 50,000 spectators. It was the event's 89th edition, as organised by the automotive group, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) since 1923. The event, the fourth round of the 2021 FIA World Endurance Championship, was postponed from June to August to increase the likelihood of admitting spectators to the race amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in France. A test day was held a week prior to the event on 15 August.

The race was the first Le Mans event to feature the new Le Mans Hypercar regulations as its highest class, replacing the LMP1 class. A Toyota GR010 Hybrid shared by Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López began from pole position after Kobayashi set the overall fastest lap time in the Hyperpole session. The trio led for most of the race to achieve their first Le Mans victories and Toyota's fourth in succession. Their teammates Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Kazuki Nakajima finished two laps behind in second; Alpine's Nicolas Lapierre, André Negrão and Matthieu Vaxivière, who shared an Alpine A480-Gibson car, completed the overall podium.

The debuting Team WRT squad of Robin Frijns, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi won the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class by 0.727 seconds over Jota Sport's Tom Blomqvist, Sean Gelael and Stoffel Vandoorne after the second WRT crew of Louis Delétraz, Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye failed to complete the final lap because of a throttle sensor problem stopping their class-leading Oreca 07 entry. Ferrari won the Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Professional (LMGTE Pro) class with an AF Corse-fielded Ferrari 488 GTE Evo shared by James Calado, Côme Ledogar and Alessandro Pier Guidi beating Corvette Racing's Nicky Catsburg, Antonio García and Jordan Taylor in a Chevrolet Corvette C8.R by 41.686 seconds. The Italian marque also won the Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Amateur (LMGTE Am) category for the first time with AF Corse's Nicklas Nielsen, François Perrodo and Alessio Rovera ahead of TF Sport's Felipe Fraga, Ben Keating and Dylan Pereira in an Aston Martin Vantage AMR.

Conway, Kobayashi and López's victory promoted them atop the Hypercar Drivers' Championship by nine points over their teammates, Buemi, Hartley and Nakajima, whose second-place finish demoted them to second. Alpine's Lapierre, Negrão and Vaxivière maintained their hold on third position. Calado and Pier Guidi, with 124 points, overtook Porsche's Kévin Estre and Neel Jani for the GTE Drivers' Championship. Toyota and Ferrari left Le Mans as the respective Hypercar World Endurance and GTE Manufacturers' Championship leaders with two races left in the season.