When Don Panoz was allowed to bring the rules and racing formulae of the 24 Hours of Le Mans to North America with the creation of the Petit Le Mans in 1998, he attempted to build a series inspired by it. The aged IMSA GT Championship was taken over and became the new American Le Mans Series, which met with much success in 1999. Europe had lacked a major sports prototype series since the demise of the World Sportscar Championship in 1992, so following the success of the ALMS, Panoz attempted to bring sports prototype racing back to Europe. The 2000 ALMS season included two European races, at the Nürburgring and Silverstone Circuit, as well as a round in Australia, serving as a precursor to a separate European series.
The European Le Mans Series was launched for 2001 with five races, including a premier 1000 km race at Estoril that earned automatic entries to the 24 Hours of Le Mans for each class winner. To aid development, the 2001 season shared some races between ALMS and ELMS: the 12 Hours of Sebring and Petit Le Mans were optional for ELMS teams, while the ELMS races at Donington Park and Jarama were optional for ALMS teams. The series was unable to earn much attention from European sportscar teams, especially since the final FIA Sportscar Championship and FIA GT Championship used similar cars under different rules. Entry lists fell from 25 at the start of the season to a mere 14 at season's end, and with little media interest the European Le Mans Series folded after the 2001 season.
The ACO was not satisfied that IMSA had not fully complied with its regulations, nor with the failure of the FIA Sportscar Championship in Europe. Seeing the success of the American Le Mans Series, the ACO decided a series run by itself would be a better alternative for Europe, attracting factory-backed teams with longer endurance races than ALMS and FIA SCC ran, and being European-based so as to sit closer to many sportscar teams' factories.
In 2003, the ACO announced its own European-based series, named the Le Mans Endurance Series, similar to the original European Le Mans Series but featuring only 1000 km races and fewer races per season to keep costs down. Champions would earn automatic entries to the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The series was previewed in a one-off race run under the LMES banner at the 1000km of Le Mans in 2003 before the season started in 2004. The 2004 season participated in four events, resurrecting classic races including the 1000km Monza, 1000km Nürburgring, 1000 km Silverstone and the Spa 1000 km. The 2005 season expanded to a five-race format with the addition of the Istanbul Racing Circuit.
In 2006 the series became simply the Le Mans Series. In 2007 it held its first and single overseas race in South America, with Mil Milhas Brasil as the sixth round. In 2010, the Formula Le Mans Cup was integrated into the Le Mans Series, running alongside Le Mans Prototype and GT cars.
As the FIA World Endurance Championship was reestablished in 2012, the series — now the European Le Mans Series — had a reduced car count, officially dropped the LMP1 prototype class, and reduced its calendar to three rounds at Paul Ricard, Donington Park and Road Atlanta (Petit Le Mans). For 2013, a twenty-nine-car field was announced, with eleven in LMP2, ten in LM GTE, and five in a new GTC class using GT3 technical rules, over a five-race, three-hour calendar. In 2014 the LMPC class was dropped and all races were expanded to four hours.
The 2015 season introduced the LMP3 prototype class, with cars built by Ligier, Ginetta, ADESS and Norma, each powered by 5.0L Nissan V8 naturally aspirated engines. In 2016 the GTC class was dropped and moved to a new support series, the GT3 Le Mans Cup, held on the same weekends as the four-hour ELMS events. In 2017 the ACO established that the lower LMP3 teams would drop to that year's Michelin Le Mans Cup while the best LMP3 teams from it would be promoted to ELMS; new ACO LMP2 regulations were introduced with licensed manufacturers Dallara, Onroak Automotive (Ligier), Oreca and the Riley Tech/Multimatic joint venture, with Gibson Technology as the exclusive engine supplier.
In 2020, with the season heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the 4 Hours of Silverstone was dropped because a date could not be found, and the 4 Hours of Barcelona was replaced by a second 4 Hours of Le Castellet at Circuit Paul Ricard; new ACO Generation II LMP3 cars also became eligible. In 2021, an LMP2 Pro-Am Cup Trophy was introduced for teams with bronze-rated contracted drivers. The 2023 season marked the last for the LMGTE class, replaced from 2024 by a GT3-specification class known as LMGT3, with Goodyear as the exclusive tyre supplier. The 2025 season marks the debut of ACO Generation III LMP3 cars — chassis from Ginetta, Ligier, Duqueine and ADESS, all using a 3.5L Toyota V6 twin-turbo engine and Michelin tyres.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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