Team Qatar to make Le Mans 24 Hours debut with big ambitions

June 9 : Team Qatar will make their Le Mans 24 Hours endurance debut this weekend in a significant step for a small country with big motorsport ambitions.

The team have linked up with Italy-based Iron Lynx to field an LMGT3 Mercedes-AMG entry at the French Circuit de la Sarthe with Qatari driver Abdulla Al-Khelaifi partnering German Julian Hanses and Giuliano Alesi, son of former Formula One racer Jean.

Qatar's Le Mans entry is part of a plan to grow its local involvement in the sport. The country already hosts MotoGP, Formula One and the World Endurance Championship (WEC) rounds, is a stakeholder in the Audi F1 team via Qatar Investment Authority and is home to Dakar Rally champion Nasser Al-Attiyah.

"The vision for us...is to have Qatari drivers competing at the highest level of motorsports, whether it's Le Mans or even Formula One," Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation President Abdulrahman bin Abdullatif Al Mannai told Reuters.

"Qatari drivers picked up by teams and factories - this is what we'd like to see at the end of it.

"We started very, very small in our national championships and now our regional, continental and now we're pushing to the worldwide stage."

'FIRST CREATE THE EXCITEMENT'

The Hypercar category is the pinnacle at Le Mans, with Ferrari chasing a fourth win in succession after ending Toyota's five-year run at the top. LMGT3 is the third tier, after LMP2 prototypes run by independent teams. 

LMGT3 is also the largest of the classes, with 25 entries and 75 drivers this year on a 62-car starting grid for what will be the 94th running of the race.

Team Qatar also have a Qatari engineer, another small step towards building the future.

"First of all you need to create excitement, you want people to be excited about