The 24-hour race at Le Mans is perhaps the toughest motor race there is: an entire day of non-stop racing. It’s gruelling for both car and drivers, but this makes it one of the highlights of the calendar for motorsports fans. 2023 marks the 100th anniversary of the event, making it a particularly special one.
Hundreds of thousands of people travel to Circuit de la Sarthe in France, but for many more, watching online or on TV is the only way to see the spectacle. And that’s why you’re here, of course.
So here’s everything you need to know about catching the action this weekend, as well as practice sessions and Hyperpole qualifying.
When is the 24 Hours of Le Mans start time?
The race itself begins at 4pm local time (France) on Saturday 10 June.
In the UK, that’s a 3pm start time on Eurosport 2, and 10am on the US east coast, and 7am on the west coast – on MotorTend.
Obviously, being a 24-hour race, it will conclude at 4pm local time on Sunday 11 June.
Qualifying is on 7 June from 6-7pm, with Hyperpole qualifying on 8 June, with coverage starting at 6.45pm (UK) on Eurosport 2. In the US, you can catch it at 1.45pm (EDT) on MotorTrend.
Can I watch or stream Le Mans for free?
Yes you can, although you won’t be able to see the entire race live.
In the UK, you can watch it on Quest (Freeview channel 12, or 114 for Quest HD) but only from 11pm on Saturday for four hours – not exactly ideal.
For more coverage, you may want to watch on the French free-to-air L’Equipe channel which is allowed to broadcast up to 18 hours of the race live.
You’ll need to watch via the website, and to do that you’ll need to create an account. Click on the menu, then se connecter (shown below). Then click on pas encore inscrit? and enter your email address and a password (which must have at least one uppercase letter, a number and a symbol in it).
Jim Martin / Foundry
If you’re not actually in France, you’ll also need a VPN to watch, otherwise the video is blocked. Fortunately, you can subscribe to NordVPN or Surfshark to get around this. We can confirm that NordVPN’s Paris server successfully unblocks the video.
Of course, commentary will be in French, but if you don’t speak French you can listen to commentary in English separately from the Radio UK website.
Eurosport 1 is free to air in Germany, and the full race will be shown live for German viewers via satellite. If you have a Freesat box and can tune your dish to receive it outside Germany you can watch, but it’s far from simple to watch the German version of Eurosport online, even if you have a VPN.
How to watch the full 24 hours of Le Mans on TV
If you’re in Europe, including in the UK, you can watch the full race live on Eurosport 2 and Eurosport 2 HD.
To watch Eurosport you’ll need the appropriate package or bundle for Sky, BT TV, Virgin or TalkTalk. However, if you don’t get your internet (and TV) from one of those providers, you can watch Eurosport via the Discovery+ app, but there’s no way to watch Discovery+ without paying.
A subscription to Discovery+ costs £6.99 per month or £59.99 per year.
An alternative is a subscription to MotorTrend+ (see below) which is available on Amazon Prime Video Channels (for UK, US and Canadian viewers), and you can also get it on Apple TV and Roku.
US & Canada
In the US, you can watch the entire race on television on MotorTrend TV. In Canada, the same is possible on Velocity.
The race itself starts at 10am EDT, or 7am PT, but pre-race coverage begins an hour earlier.
You can also stream the race live to most devices via the MotorTrend+ streaming service which costs $4.99 per month or $44.99 per year. There is a useful seven-day free trial, which of course is enough to watch the full 24 hours of the race.
2023 Le Mans race schedule
Here’s the broadcast schedule for MotorTend (all times EDT)
Free Practice & Qualifying
Wednesday, 7 June at 7:45am
Qualifying Practice
Wednesday, 7 June at 12:45pm
Free Practice Session 2
Wednesday, 7 June at 3:45pm
Free Practice Session 3
Thursday, 8 June at 8:45am
Hyperpole Qualifying
Thursday, 8 June at 1:45pm
Free Practice Session 4
Thursday, 8 June at 3:45pm
Warm Up
Saturday, 10 June at 5:45am
Pre-race Coverage
Saturday, 10 June at 9:00am
How can I stream Le Mans online?
You can try and find unofficial streams (likely to be rebroadcasts of the Eurosport coverage) online, but obviously we can’t condone this route.
If you want to stream the entirety of 24H Le Mans as a one-off event you can buy a pass in the new official WEC app for 12.99 € (around £10). However, this isn’t available to watch in the US or Canada as it is region-locked (but as already stated, you can get MotorTrend+ in those countries instead). If you really want to use the WEC app, you’ll need a VPN service. Two good choices are NordVPN and Surfshark.
Author: Jim Martin, Executive Editor
Jim has been testing and reviewing products for over 20 years. His main beats include VPN services and antivirus. He also covers smart home tech, mesh Wi-Fi and electric bikes.