Scheduling: The 2017 24 Hours of Le Mans

The most famous endurance race in the world is back! The 24 Hours of Le Mans takes place next weekend, and with it continues its live free-to-air expansion in the United Kingdom. The race marks round three of the FIA World Endurance Championship.

As revealed back in April, for the first time since 2009, ITV4 will be screening live coverage of the race. The channel will broadcast the last four and a half hours of the race live, with Richard Henwood on presenting duties.

The good news for those watching via Eurosport is that the race in its entirety will be broadcast on Eurosport’s main channel, ensuring no channel switches. Although this has not been formally confirmed, expect the usual faces of Martin Haven, Liz Halliday and Mark Cole to form part of their coverage. Part of Eurosport’s coverage will again be simulcast on Quest for the third year running.

One change to Eurosport’s programming is that the ’24 Minutes’ branding has been dropped, presumably because it was too restrictive given its name. Instead, a series of live programmes will be broadcast under the ‘Extra’ branding, wrapped around practice and qualifying. This works out to be a net gain in air-time as Eurosport used to go off-air between the on-track sessions on Thursday and Friday.

Lastly, it should be noted that neither BT Sport or Motorsport.tv are airing the 24 Hours of Le Mans live as Eurosport have retained their exclusivity deal on the race.

Wednesday 14th June (Eurosport)
14:45 to 19:10
=> 14:45 – Extra
=> 15:00 – Practice
20:45 to 23:10
=> 20:45 – Extra
=> 21:00 – Qualifying 1

Thursday 15th June (Eurosport)
17:45 to 19:55
=> 17:45 – Extra
=> 18:00 – Qualifying 2
20:10 to 23:10
=> 20:10 – Extra
=> 21:00 – Qualifying 3

Saturday 17th June
08:00 to 08:45 – Warm Up (Eurosport)
13:00 to 23:59 (Eurosport)
=> 13:00 – Extra
=> 13:45 – Race
=> five-minute updates at 15:00, 17:00, 19:00 and 21:00
13:30 to 15:00 – Race Start (Quest TV)
20:00 to 21:00 – Saturday Evening (Quest TV)

Sunday 18th June
00:00 to 14:15 – Race (Eurosport)
=> five-minute updates at 07:00, 09:00, 11:00 and 13:00
09:30 to 14:45 – Race Conclusion (ITV4)
10:00 to 11:00 – Sunday Morning (Quest TV)
13:00 to 14:30 – Race Conclusion (Quest TV)

Monday 19th June
19:00 to 20:00 – Highlights (Quest TV)

Saturday 24th June
08:00 to 09:00 – Highlights (ITV4)

If anything changes, or more personnel confirmed, I will update the schedule.

Update on June 13th – Thanks to all of you in the comments with links confirming the respective television line-ups, safe to say that there is a wide variety of talent on offer.

Starting with ITV4, they will be taking the World Feed commentary, which Toby Moody is leading. Alongside Moody for the race will be Allan McNish, Julian Porter, Peter Dumbreck, Duncan Vincent and Louise Beckett.

Quest will be using the same commentary as Eurosport’s coverage, with their own presentation team led by Louise Goodman, Diana Binks and Andy Jaye.

As reported on Sportscar365, Eurosport’s commentary team will consist of Mark Cole, Martin Haven, Carlton Kirby and David Addison. Additional analysis will be provided by Sam Hancock, Damien Faulkner and Liz Halliday, whilst Chris Parsons will help take viewers through the night. It is Addison’s first time with the Eurosport team, readers may recognise his voice from ITV4’s British Touring Car Championship coverage.