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The 85th 24 Hours of Le Mans (French: 85e 24 Heures du Mans) will be an automobile endurance event held on 17–18 June 2017 at the Circuit de la Sarthe, Le Mans, France. It will be the 85th running of the 24 Hour race organised by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest.
Contents
Schedule
The date for the 2017 Le Mans race was confirmed by the FIA World Motor Sport Council in a press conference of the sport's organiser, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO), at the Musée des 24 Heures du Mans on 16 June 2016. It will the 85th running of the event, and the third round of the 2017 FIA World Endurance Championship. The race has been scheduled to avoid conflicting with other major motorsport events, as was the case in the 2016 event when it clashed with the European Grand Prix. An mandatory eight-hour test session for all invited participants and reserves, as well as additional entries, will start the 2017 event on 4 June, followed by four hours of official practice on 14 June. Three qualifying sessions, each two hours long, will take place on 14 and 15 June. The race will start at 15:00 Central European Summer Time (CEST) (UTC+2) on 17 June and end 24 hours later.
Automatic invitations
Automatic entry invitations are earned by teams that won their class in the previous running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, or won championships in the European Le Mans Series, Asian Le Mans Series, and the Michelin GT3 Le Mans Cup. The second-place finisher in the European Le Mans Series LMGTE championship also earns an automatic invitation. Two participants from the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship are chosen by the series to be automatic entries by the ACO regardless of their performance or category. As invitations are granted to teams, they were allowed to change their cars from the previous year to the next, but not allowed to change their category. The LMGTE class invitations from the European and Asian Le Mans Series are allowed to choose between the Pro and Am categories. European Le Mans Series' LMP3 champion is required to field an entry in LMP2 while the Asian Le Mans Series LMP3 champion may choose between LMP2 or LMGTE Am. The Michelin GT3 Le Mans Cup champions are limited to the LMGTE Am category.
Entry list
In conjunction with the announcement of entries for the 2017 FIA World Endurance Championship and the 2017 European Le Mans Series, the ACO announced the full 60 car entry list for Le Mans, plus two reserves.