World Endurance Championship

TotalEnergies is the official fuel supplier for the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) and for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

TotalEnergies is therefore actively involved in the return of Peugeot Sport to the WEC from 2022 in the new Hypercar category. The group, via the Elf brand, is equally a partner of Alpine, which returns to the top Endurance category (Hypercar) in 2021.

Major partnership with Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO)

The ACO has recently redefined the rules for the WEC, introducing stricter constraints for the Hypercar category. Now, the objective is to achieve the best performance while minimising fuel consumption. This revolution reflects the current concerns of both manufacturers and motorists: consuming less and reducing their environmental footprint.

To meet these requirements, our engineers have developed a new fuel for 2021, called Excellium Endurance. This specially-designed fuel contains 10% ethanol from renewable sources (plant waste) and is partly composed (5%) of bio-hydrocarbons, i.e. derived from biomass materials that delivers greater energy efficiency. This process marks another significant step taken by TotalEnergies towards its goal of using more and more renewable sources in its fuels.

This high-octane FIA WEC fuel also makes it possible to optimise both compression ratios and ignition settings for engines, improving their output (ratio between mechanical power generated and thermal power spread) and increasing their longevity. Last, Excellium Endurance reduces fuel consumption by 2,5 % to 3 %.

Ultimately, our technology to use Excellium additives, combined with fuel, protects the engine from clogging which is crucial for endurance races and especially the very challenging, 24h of Le Mans. This technology is also used for our consumers in our stations.

Peugeot and TotalEnregies develop a Le Mans Hypercar

Peugeot and TotalEnergies marked twenty-five years of working together in 2020 by officially launching their joint Le Mans Hypercar (LMH) project. An ambitious programme that will lead to a works entry in the World Endurance Championship from 2022 onwards. Deeply rooted in the DNA of both brands, racing has always provided unrivalled opportunities for technological development. Le Mans Hypercar, Endurance racing’s new top-tier category, embodies perfectly the energy transition of both companies and especially that undertaken by TotalEnergies, which has now become a multi-energy group able to meet all mobility demands.

Alpine returns to the top-tier category with elf

Forty-three years after the Alpine A442b claimed overall victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Alpine returns to Endurance racing’s top-tier category in 2021. It will be supported once again by Elf, its longstanding sporting partner, as it embarks on this new challenge. The arrival of Alpine Elf Matmut Team in the new Hypercar category with the Alpine A480 is the logical next step after claiming two FIA WEC LMP2 World Championship titles in 2016 and 2019 and winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times in the last five years in the feeder category to the top tier.

Determined to learn with patience and humility – whilst equally hoping to spring a surprise – the team’s driver line-up will feature the Frenchman Nicolas Lapierre, third overall at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2014, the Brazilian André Négrao, and the Frenchman Matthieu Vaxivière.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans, a legendary race

The main event of the FIA WEC season, the 24 Hours of Le Mans is one of the world’s most extreme and demanding races for the cars taking part.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans is equally a huge challenge for the people involved. TotalEnergies teams are no exception to this rule, distributing some 280,000 litres of fuel to the 62 cars taking part. In the interests of sporting equity, at the request of the ACO and the FIA, they also conduct more than 150 fuel compliance tests in the pit garages of the various competitors. They conduct the tests using a chromatography device, which checks the fuel’s “digital fingerprint”. Our fuel is controlled at each manufacturing step in order to ensure high quality and to warrant fairness to all competitors. To do so, a TotalEnergies engineer is on the track to check the fuel, at all time.

More than 150 tests conducted during the 24h of Le Mans to check fuel compliance of the competitors.

5% the fraction of bio-hydrocarbons introduced in 2021 in Excellium Endurance

1.5 years of research and development were needed by the TotalEnergies engineers to develop the formula of Excellium Endurance and approve it with the manufacturers.