For the third consecutive season, American racing legend Roger Penske will take his Porsche Penske Motorsport team into the heart of France to do battle in the iconic 24 Hours of Le Mans, choosing a three-car lineup for the 2025 edition as he pursues an elusive win in the most gruelling of endurance races.
Penske Pursues Le Mans Victory After 62-Year Quest for Success
The 93rd running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans gets underway on June 14, 2025, and Porsche Penske Motorsport will field a three-pronged attack. In addition to their regular two-car lineup in the FIA World Endurance Championship, the official 62-car entry list revealed a third contender from the iconic marque, as Penske strives for a first-ever overall win at the Circuit de la Sarthe.
While the third prong of the triple-headed monster might be unfamiliar to WEC aficionados, there’s a comforting familiarity about the extra entry for the Porsche Penske Motorsport team — and American race fans. The number 7, which is piloted permanently with great success by Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy in the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship, will run the number 4 Porsche 963 Hypercar at the legendary Le Mans race.
The duo will be joined by Pascal Wehrlein, a former Formula 1 driver with 39 grand prix starts and the reigning Formula E world champion. Despite an extensive multi-class racing career, 2025 will mark the German national’s debut at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the crown jewel of endurance racing.
Thankfully, there’s no shortage of experience in the number 4 Porsche Penske Motorsport, with Nasr making his sixth appearance at the legendary race. His best finish came in 2022 with a Team Penske-entered Oreca 07-Gibson, which finished fifth in class and ninth overall.
However, the real star of the show for the Porsche Penske Motorsport team at the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans is Tandy. The British driver has an extensive history at the event, with his entry in the upcoming race marking the 13th attempt at conquering the iconic event. Having won the race in a Porsche 919 Hybrid in 2015, Tandy is the only driver to secure wins in the four major 24-hour races (Le Mans, Daytona, Nürburgring, and Spa).
Penske couldn’t have chosen a better protagonist to try and end a 62-year quest for an overall victory at the Circuit de la Sarthe.
One of the most successful team owners in the history of motorsport, with more wins at the Indy 500 than any other, “the Captain” has a complicated relationship with the 24 Hours of Le Mans. He first encountered the legendary race in 1963 as a 26-year-old, piloting a Ferrari 330 TRI/LM that suffered a mechanical failure and prematurely ended his dreams of securing a win.
Eight years later, Penske returned for his first crack at taming the Circuit de la Sarthe as a team owner. The 1971 24 Hours of Le Mans ended in the same result, a heartbreaking retirement, having completed just 58 laps of a 38-turn circuit that routinely produces over 300 laps for those capable of enduring the rigors of 24 hours of nonstop on-the-limit racing.
A 51-year hiatus followed, with Penske dominating the US motor racing scene while never shaking off the dream of returning to the magical eight-mile hybrid of public road and purpose-built raceway to pursue an overall victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Since rekindling his love affair with the greatest endurance race of them all, overall victory has remained tantalizingly out of reach for Penske.
Joining forces with Porsche in 2023, they limped to a 16th overall place with the number 5 car piloted by Dane Cameron (a fellow American), Michael Christensen, and Frederic Makowiecki, while the number 6 car finished 22nd overall. The 75 (containing Nasr, Tandy, and Mathieu Jaminet) completed just 84 laps and failed to finish, a result they’d repeat in 2024.
The Porsche 963 Hypercar had the pace to win the race for Penske in 2024, with Kevin Estre securing pole position on Thursday. Yet, come Sunday afternoon and 311 laps of the Circuit de la Sarthe later, a fourth-placed finish was all the team had to show for their efforts, and the wait for the elusive victory rolled on to the 2025 event, the 93rd running of the iconic race.
It is often said that you don’t win Le Mans; the race chooses who it wants to win. The gruelling pursuit of success requires everything to align: man, machine, and nature, all working in perfect harmony. Tandy has tamed the 24 Hours of Le Mans once and running a third car increases the law of averages, but as Penske knows, the Circuit de la Sarthe cares not for those rules.