24 Hours of Le Mans on Le Mans Ultimate: a night of endurance from the inside

On Saturday 24 October 2026 at 15:59, the JOBARD Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) took the start of the 24 Hours of Le Mans on Le Mans Ultimate, in the LMGT3 category, wearing the livery presented the day before the race. Four drivers shared the car through to the chequered flag on Sunday: Guillaume Jobard, John Ribeiro, Bryan Serton and Florian Gauthier.

The race report covers what happened. This article is about something else: what a 24-hour team race on a simulator actually involves. The figures come from JOBARD Race Engineer, the race team's application, which logged every lap of the race.

Thirty-two stints written before the start

A 24-hour race begins several days before the green flag, in a plan. The crew's plan comprised thirty-two stints of roughly three quarters of an hour, grouped in threes. Each driver therefore completes three consecutive stints — approximately two hours and a quarter of driving — before handing over the wheel. Tyre changes are scheduled at driver changes, never between fuel stops.

The rotation is fixed: Guillaume, John, Bryan, Florian, then repeat. This structure has a consequence that is difficult to appreciate until you have lived it: each of the four drivers had a night stint. Florian took to the track at 22:51, Guillaume at 01:00, John at 02:16, Bryan at 04:35. That is the principle of rotation: a night shared across four drivers is manageable; a night carried by one driver alone is not.

The stint, the basic unit of endurance

On the Circuit de la Sarthe, the Porsche completes a lap in just over four minutes. Between two pit stops, it covers eleven laps — approximately 45 minutes. A driver stint therefore spans thirty-three laps and three pit visits.

The pit stop has a cost, and telemetry allows it to be quantified. A fuel stop alone costs just over one minute compared to two laps at full pace. A driver change with fresh tyres costs approximately one and a half minutes. Over twenty-four hours, the Porsche stopped thirty-one times, ten of which involved a driver change: in rough terms, around forty minutes more than had those laps been run without stopping.

That is the first lesson of an endurance race: lap time is earned on track, but races are frequently lost in the pits. A consistent stint, with no unnecessary laps and no missed stop, is worth more than a quick lap.

The night cools the track by 34 degrees

At the start, on Saturday afternoon, the track temperature recorded by telemetry was 48.7 °C. At 02:16, it had fallen to 14.2 °C. On Sunday at 11:28, it had risen again to 40.3 °C. Thirty-four degrees of variation within a single race, with the same car and the same tyre compound.

On paper, cooler conditions help lap times: denser air feeds the engine, tyres overheat less. Night, however, reduces visibility and adds fatigue. What the data shows, for the three drivers who completed a stint in the late afternoon and then a stint in the dead of night, comparing their median lap:

• Guillaume: 4:00.303 in the afternoon, 3:58.965 at night — 1.3 s faster
• Bryan: 4:03.805 in the evening, 4:03.804 at night — the same pace to within a thousandth
• John: 4:04.010 in the late afternoon, 4:04.702 at night — 0.7 s slower

There is therefore no single rule. The grip gain exists, but each driver exploits it according to their own way of driving in the dark. That is why an endurance strategy is built on each driver's measured pace, not on a single reference lap time. That pace is measured, not guessed — which is precisely the value of reading a telemetry trace.

An hour lived twice

That night had a peculiarity the calendar rarely imposes on a race: the switch to winter time. It took place at 03:00, during Guillaume's stint, and the clock rolled back to 02:00. Green flag at 15:59 on Saturday, chequered flag at 15:02 on Sunday: reading the clock, the race lasted less than a day. It nonetheless lasted twenty-four hours, and the hour between 02:00 and 03:00 was lived twice by the crew.

For a stint plan, this detail is not trivial. A plan written in local time shifts by one hour in the middle of the night; a plan anchored to race elapsed time does not move. The crew's plan was built from the actual green flag, and it held.

What a contact costs at night

Shortly after 23:00, during Florian's stint, a contact sends the Porsche to the pits for repairs. The lap on which the incident occurred was completed in 9:49.732, the out-lap in 5:57.459, whereas a normal pit visit runs to 4:09 on the in-lap and 5:09 on the out-lap. The contact cost approximately six and a half minutes.

In the overall classification, across all categories, the Porsche was 25th at the start of that stint. It is 41st when Guillaume takes the wheel at 01:00. What follows is a patient effort: 37th at 02:16, 35th at 06:53, 34th at 09:11.

That is the second lesson of endurance, and the hardest to accept. Guillaume's pace gain at night — 1.3 s per lap — amounts to roughly 44 seconds over a thirty-three-lap stint. The contact cost nearly nine times as much. That time cannot be recovered by pushing harder: it is recovered by making no further mistakes.

In the morning, a penalty in the fastest-lap stint

Guillaume's final stint, from 09:11 to 11:28, contains the crew's fastest lap of the entire race: 3:57.742. It is also the stint in which a penalty was served in the pits, mid-stint.

In endurance racing, a stint is read in full: lap times on one side, time surrendered in the pit lane on the other. A quick stint with two unnecessary pit visits is not a good stint; a slightly slower stint with no superfluous stops can yield more. That is precisely what lap-by-lap reading makes it possible to measure — as detailed in the analysis of an Academy round.

At the finish, 345 laps

John took the wheel at 11:28, Bryan at 13:46 for the final stint. The chequered flag fell at 15:02: the Porsche finishes 15th in the LMGT3 category and 32nd in the overall classification, after 345 laps of the Circuit de la Sarthe.

The plan called for thirty-two stints and therefore thirty-one stops. The race counted exactly thirty-one. All four drivers raced at night, and the crew's fastest lap came after more than eighteen hours of racing. That is what a 24-hour race reveals when you read it lap by lap: it is not won in a single stint — it is built on the consistency of all of them.

Follow the race team's next races and talk with the crew on the JOBARD Racing Discord.

Join the JOBARD Racing Discord →

Sources: telemetry and race plan from JOBARD Race Engineer, 24 Hours of Le Mans, Le Mans Ultimate, 24–25 October 2026 (Porsche 911 GT3 R (992), LMGT3) · result declared in JOBARD Race Engineer: 15th in LMGT3, 345 laps.

In brief

How many drivers are needed for a 24-hour race on Le Mans Ultimate?

The JOBARD Racing crew had four, each completing three consecutive stints of approximately two hours and a quarter, twice during the race. This allocation gives each driver one night stint and a rest period between their two spells at the wheel.

How long does an endurance stint last?

On the Circuit de la Sarthe, the Porsche 911 GT3 R covers eleven laps between two pit stops — approximately 45 minutes. A driver stint grouped three such runs, for a total of thirty-three laps.

Is lap time faster at night?

The track is cooler and therefore potentially more grippy: from 48.7 °C at the start, it dropped to 14.2 °C. But of the three drivers who completed a daytime stint and then a night stint, one was quicker, one matched the same pace, and one was slower. Visibility and fatigue matter as much as temperature.

What does a pit stop cost?

Approximately just over one minute for a fuel stop, and one and a half minutes for a driver change with fresh tyres, compared to two laps at full pace.

How do you follow JOBARD Racing's next races?

The race team's calendar and results are on the JOBARD Racing page of the website, and races can be followed on the race team's Discord.