Robert Kubica Leads 16 Ex-F1 Drivers Into Le Mans 2026

Le Mans 2026 opens on Saturday 13 June at 3pm BST with 16 former Formula 1 drivers in the field. The 186-driver entry is split across Hypercar, LMP2 and LMGT3, and the former Grand Prix contingent is concentrated where the pace is highest.

Kubica Returns With AF Corse

Robert Kubica is back in the No.83 AF Corse Ferrari with Yifei Ye and Phil Hanson. He arrives as the 2025 Le Mans winner, having helped Ferrari to a third successive Le Mans victory for AF Corse.

Kubica’s route to this point has been long. He made 99 Formula 1 starts with Sauber and Renault from 2007 to 2010, then had his career upended by a serious arm injury in an early-2011 rallying crash before returning for a final Formula 1 campaign with Williams in 2019.

Hypercar Packs Former F1 Winners

Thirteen of the 16 ex-Formula 1 drivers are in Hypercar, which puts much of the old single-seater experience at the front of the Le Mans entry list. Kamui Kobayashi is part of that group, driving the No.7 Toyota TR010 with Nyck de Vries and Mike Conway.

Kobayashi made 75 starts in Formula 1 with Toyota, Sauber and Caterham, won Le Mans in 2021 and finished fifth there in 2025. De Vries brings a different path to the same class: he made a points-scoring stand-in debut at Monza in 2022, contested 10 rounds for AlphaTauri in 2023 before being dropped mid-season, and finished second at Le Mans in 2024 with Kobayashi and Conway in the No.7 Toyota.

LMP2 And LMGT3 Split

The remaining ex-F1 drivers are spread thinly outside Hypercar. Two are racing in LMP2 and one is entered in LMGT3, which leaves the elite single-seater alumni divided across all three classes rather than stacked in one team or one garage.

That makes the opening of the race straightforward to read for anyone following the entry list: Kubica is back to defend his Le Mans place at the sharp end, Kobayashi remains central to Toyota’s attack, and de Vries has another shot at the result that eluded him in 2024.