Cadillac Racing fielded three entries for the 2023 running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, including the No. 2 V-Series.R, the No. 311 V-Series.R and the No. 3 V-Series.R. Despite a rather chaotic race, the luxury marque’s motorsports teams managed to salvage decent finishes at the historic track, with the best Cadillac Racing machine bringing home third place in the Hypercar class.
The No. 3 Cadillac V-Series.R, driven by Sebastien Bourdais, Renger van der Zande and Scott Dixon, made contact with other racers twice, putting the team one lap down on multiple occasions. However, the No. 3 V-Series.R rallied back to a fourth-place finish.
“We’ve been the quickest car, or one of the quickest cars out there,” Bourdais said. “It’s been an awesome day driving. Just not the right circumstances for us. We had one opportunity to get back on the lead lap, which I took. I overtook the leader and started to pull away. I had about a 30-second gap and then that [LMP2 car] just turned on me. I wasn’t taking any prisoners at that stage.”
Meanwhile, the No. 311 V-Series.R, guided by Jack Aitken, Alex Sims and Pipo Derani, unfortunately wrecked into a barrier on the very first lap. Ultimately, this entry lost 18 laps due to the extensive repairs necessary to make it race-worthy again, finishing 17th, overall.
The most impressive showing was put forth by the No. 2 V-Series.R of Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn and Richard Westbrook. This entry had a relatively quiet 24 hours, with its only mishap being a neat spin under Westbrook’s control due to a wet racetrack.
“There’s always going to be a bit of disappointment with finishing third, I’ve done that enough times at Le Mans, so that hurts in a way, but just super-proud to be part of Cadillac,” Westbrook said. “This has given us so much to work on, we can see where we need to improve, we know where they’re really good now, and we’ve just got to work hard, grind it out and come back strong next year.”
Even so, the No. 2 V-Series.R earned Cadillac Racing its first-ever podium at Le Mans.
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It was a great race
Cadillac beat 3 Porsches, 1 Ferrari and 1 Toyota. Good race indeed.
Sorry I have not followed Cadillac until this year. Which engine are they using?
5.5 liter ohv V8 along with a mild hybrid system. The best sounding motor in its class no doubt,
Is the 5.5 L engine Cadillac uses at LeMans the same flat crank engine used in the Z06?
It's not the same engine....has a cross plane crank shaft for starters.
Great weekend for the General. Cadillac on the podium, Corvette wins its class, and even the Garage 56 Camaro won its class (hey if not having competition worked for Toyota for the last five years, then I am counting this a win for the Camaro).
So proud of Team Cadillac & Team Corvette. Just finishing the race is amazing, but where we finished is fantastic. The future looks bright for next year.
Nice to see Cadillac and Corvette do well. Glad they beat Porsche, for some reason I hate just hate Porsche .
have you driven one?
Yes have the C8. Great car.