The nature of the Le Mans 24 Hours means individual driver performances get lost behind the headline of team success.
That's by design, naturally, and it's one of the big attractions of the event. As one of the drivers coming up on this list told The Race: "You can't do it alone. If you are fast and the other ones [in your car] are maybe less fast, it's a nice feeling, for sure - but you only win as a group, you only win together. You're not going to win anything by just trying to put the fastest lap of the car every time you jump in."
Still, highlighting individual standouts is a worthwhile exercise - also because it helps inform drivers' employment prospects, their FIA Driver Categorisation status, and their place in Le Mans lore.
Below, we've picked out 17 drivers - in no particular order - who left a big impression on us during this Le Mans. These aren't necessarily the fastest or the best 17 - some of them are up there, yes, while some were simply clearly valuable in their particular circumstance or given their particular driver category.
Robert Kubica
Hypercar
#83 AF Corse Ferrari
Platinum
166 laps
Let's get the easy one out of the way first. It isn't all that often the case that the most famous driver in the winning entry in an endurance race is also the driver of the race - yet here that was clearly true.
Works Ferrari drivers could only laud the pace of the #83 after the end of the race, and while his team-mates acquitted themselves well, Kubica - who drove for over 10 hours - was the main instrument of delivering that pace. He had the race's second-best lap and a massive drive time capped off with that blockbuster race-ending stint.
He also had the best 60%-best-laps average of any driver. This is calculated by taking the top 60% of the driver's fastest laps in the race, which works to eliminate slower laps caused by excessive traffic for example, and then you take the average of those top 60% of laps to get a base laptime which better explains a driver's overall pace.
Kubica was dominant in this race, and he knew it. In his post-race media duties, he almost seemed more irritated by the small gap at the end - and by what he clearly perceived as a shortage of strategic "respect" from the works Ferraris - than happy to have won. It was not a performance to waste.
Kevin Estre
Hypercar
#6 Porsche Penske
Platinum
165 laps
Estre gets the nod because he drove the most and came out the fastest in terms of peak laptimes, but anyone from the #6 crew - Matt Campbell and Laurens Vanthoor alongside Estre - would be more than deserving here, all three visibly drained and distraught after the race having come closer to denying Ferrari than anyone expected.
"We tried to push them all the way," said Estre. "We saw from hour two or three that we didn't have the pace, but we never gave up.
"We did no mistakes and the car ran well with no issue, no penalties, nothing. We can be proud of what we achieved today - but obviously it's not what we wanted. Definitely quite a lot of frustration and disappointment."
Mick Schumacher
Hypercar
#36 Alpine
Platinum
141 laps
Alpine didn't have the Le Mans it had hoped for - but good things happened when it put Schumacher in the car.
By all sorts of metrics, whether it be fastest lap or pace calculated by averages of quickest laps, he was the best Alpine A424 driver in this one - and seemingly the best by a lot, too.
Being partnered with the experienced Fred Makowiecki seems to be bringing out the absolute best in Schumacher - but it's also clear his fellow Alpine drivers need to step up.
Mattia Drudi
LMGT3
#27 Heart of Racing Alpine
Platinum
132 laps
Lance Stroll's Italian F4 title rival-turned-Porsche Carrera Cup specialist-turned-GT ace, Drudi defeated Alessio Rovera (#21 AF Corse Ferrari) in a thoroughly entertaining fight for pole on Thursday and was probably the best driver in the class in the race.
Like Ferrari factory driver Rovera (an honourable mention in this feature, and someone who should probably be in a Ferrari 499P before too long), Drudi didn't have a great chance at winning given the complete-ness of the #92 Manthey Porsche line-up (Ryan Hardwick, Riccardo Pera, Richard Lietz) but will have kept his own factory bosses at Aston Martin happy and impressed.
Pascal Wehrlein
Hypercar
#4 Porsche Penske
Platinum
132 laps
Such is endurance racing that accomplished, acclaimed drivers can enter a line-up as a clear weak link - given the outrageous endurance pedigrees of Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy.
And Wehrlein didn't really make an impression in his Porsche 963 debut in Daytona, nor was he all that potent in WEC's Le Mans rehearsal at Spa.
The thing is, though, Pascal Wehrlein is really, really good, and will never take long to get to a properly competitive level. At Le Mans, he already looked like just one of Porsche's endurance regulars, rather than a driver being 'borrowed' from its other motorsport exploits.
Riccardo Pera
LMGT3
#92 Manthey Porsche
Silver
113 laps
Richard Lietz was the headline name in the Manthey entry, and certainly drove well en route to his sixth GT win at Le Mans, but it were his team-mates that truly made the difference in ensuring a comfortable win for the #92.
The entry's designated Silver driver, Pera, proved an absolutely massive asset as he and Lietz ably warded off any chance of a rival comeback against the #92 in the closing hours once the biggest adversary, the #46 WRT BMW, exited with electrical issues in the night.
Ryan Hardwick
LMGT3
#92 Manthey Porsche
Bronze
91 laps
The #92's Bronze driver was also a huge difference-maker. The former jet ski pro racer was obviously slower than the GT pros, but kept the Porsche afloat in his stints - and was entrusted with some valuable night-time running.
Lietz remarked post-race that Hardwick "did really amazing laptimes not cancelled by a safety car - I think that's one of the reasons why you race in WEC and not in America". Apart from a pointed jibe towards IMSA, it was a clear reflection of Hardwick's status as a competitive asset.
Tom Gamble
Hypercar
#007 Thor Aston Martin
Gold
117 laps
Aston Martin's true moment of glory - apart from finishing the race with both cars, which had to be the target in its first Le Mans with the Valkyrie anyway - during the week was long-time factory driver Marco Sorensen putting the #009 entry in a position to sneak into Hyperpole when the #6 Porsche was excluded on Wednesday night.
And Sorensen was expectedly good during the race. But it's a #009 driver we'll highlight here, with the young Gamble more than justifying Aston's decision to bring him over straight into the Hypercar class from the McLaren GT factory roster.
Brendon Hartley
Hypercar
#8 Toyota Gazoo
Platinum
123 laps
The #8's race unravelled heartbreakingly, but as far as individual performances go Hartley needed this one.
There has been a bit of behind-the-scenes consternation over his recent form, which has been evident in Hartley being weaned off qualifying duties, but he looked back to his best at Le Mans, which should be a big help in terms of his longer-term future in the line-up (especially when you see who the next entry is).
Esteban Masson
LMP2
#48 VDS Panis
Gold
158 laps
A sometime French F4 and Eurocup-3 champion whose open-wheel career still looks a viable proposition (he has been on the podium in Japanese Super Formula's main feeder series as recently as May), Toyota junior Masson may have better and simpler prospects as a budding endurance star - as evidenced by this very impressive run.
That will be little consolation to losing the class win to a brutal last-hour suspension failure while he was behind the wheel and ready to nurse the lead home. But you bet Toyota noticed the performance - the merits of which were underlined by him running more laps than any other LMP2 driver.
Patrick Pilet
LMP2 Pro-Am
#16 RLR M Sport
Platinum
150 laps
A former IMSA champion who has pivoted to GT3 racing this year, Pilet made his first LMP2 start of the campaign at Le Mans and was immediately among the best in the category.
The #16's bid for anything good in terms of results was dashed by a slow zone entry collision but Pilet had already shone before then.
Dries Vanthoor
Hypercar
#15 BMW M Team WRT
Platinum
135 laps
BMW's Mr. Qualifying was Mr. Race Pace at Le Mans, too, even if the race ultimately ended ignominiously for the Bavarian manufacturer.
Vanthoor's slender build remains an asset even with the current weight compensation rules, but it doesn't fully account for what was clearly a BMW-leading performance here. He's just pretty clearly a star.
Oliver Gray
LMP2
#48 VDS Panis
Silver
123 laps
Gray and fellow LMP2 Silver standout Maceo Capietto probably shouldn't be Silvers for very long.
It was no surprise to see the former Williams F1 junior Gray thrive here, especially given his LMP2 experience is already substantial.
The 20-year-old should have a very bright future in endurance racing.
PJ Hyett
LMP2 Pro-Am
#199 AO by TF
Bronze
99 laps
A winner in the LMP2 Pro-Am class and a podium finisher in the overall category, Hyett - best known to the outside world as one of the co-founders of software development platform GitHub - held up his end of the bargain in a TF Sport-run AO Racing entry he shared with sportscar luminaries Louis Deletraz and Dane Cameron.
Deletraz described him as "super fast" and this was no mere lip service towards the team owner, for Hyett looked to have a lot of pace in hand over his fellow Bronzes. It is a fact that belies his status as someone who hadn't won in endurance competition before ticking that box off here, which he described as "sort of unbelievable".
Dudu Barrichello
LMGT3
#10 Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin
Silver
103 laps
We promise we've tried very hard to make sure this column doesn't just devolve into a series of FIA Driver Categorisation thoughts (for clearly it's a difficult, thankless task) - but, as one final thought, there is unquestionably something funny abut having your Silver driver be the guy who finished third in Brazil's most competitive series Stock Car Brasil the year before, one place behind some guy named Felipe Massa.
Anyway, Barrichello - son of Rubens - predictably did quite well on his first Le Mans appearance, and could make a splash in this scene in the coming years.
Lilou Wadoux
LMGT3
#150 Richard Mille AF Corse Ferrari
Silver
123 laps
The Iron Dames car was putting up a good fight until getting punted off and having its gearbox seize up - but if you're looking for the standout female driver of the event, it was Wadoux in the #150 Ferrari.
Wadoux ran comparable - very comparable - laptimes to her Gold-rated team-mate Riccardo Agostini, who is no pushover, with a CV that includes titles in Italian F4, Porsche Carrera Cup Italy and the Lamborghini Super Trofeo World Final.
Alex Lynn
Hypercar
#12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA
Platinum
126 laps
Lynn did a phenomenal job in qualifying to take pole, and was then one of the impressive roster's two standouts - with Sebastien Bourdais - in the race itself.
It wasn't sustainable, but both Lynn and Bourdais flirted with Ferrari-like pace on many occasions in the race, on a day when the Cadillac clearly didn't have a real shot at the 499Ps.
Honourable mentions
Hypercar
Ye Yifei (#83 AF Corse Ferrari)
Nicklas Nielsen (#50 Ferrari AF Corse)
Sebastien Bourdais (#38 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA)
Matt Campbell (#6 Porsche Penske Motorsport)
Laurens Vanthoor (#6 Porsche Penske Motorsport)
Marco Sorensen (#009 Aston Martin Thor)
Sebastian Buemi (#8 Toyota Gazoo)
LMP2
Nick Yelloly (#43 Inter Europol)
Tom Dillmann (#43 Inter Europol)
Maceo Capietto (#73 Iron Lynx - Proton)
LMGT3
Alessio Rovera (#21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari)
Jose Maria Lopez (#87 Akkodis ASP Lexus)
Jack Hawksworth (#87 Akkodis ASP Lexus)
Zacharie Robichon (#27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin)
Clemens Schmid (#87 Akkodis ASP Lexus)
Arnold Robin (#78 Akkodis ASP Lexus)
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