Following the end of the
All Japan Sports Prototype Championship (JSPC) in 1992 there was no major endurance series involving
sports prototypes in Asia, although there was a
grand tourer championship in the
All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (JGTC), the predecessor to today's
Super GT series. Plans for a new endurance championship were initially conceived by
Don Panoz and backed by the ACO in 2000 with plans for an Asian-Pacific Le Mans Series, modeled after his
American Le Mans Series and planned
European Le Mans Series for 2001. Two previews of this event were held. The
1999 Le Mans Fuji 1000km at the
Fuji Speedway in
Japan combined Le Mans cars with
JGTC machines for automatic entries to the
2000 24 Hours of Le Mans. This idea was followed by the American Le Mans Series with the
2000 Race of a Thousand Years race at the
Adelaide Street Circuit in
Australia. These two events served as a precursor to the planned APLMS series, and at the time of the creation of ELMS, Don Panoz announced his intention to hold an exhibition APLMS race at
Sepang International Circuit in
Malaysia in late 2001. However, the European Le Mans Series suffered from a lack of entrants during its debut season and was eventually canceled. Don Panoz decided that the APLMS would likely have even less interest. Thus the APLMS exhibition race and all plans for an Asian series were scrapped. The ACO attempted to develop their own championship modeled on their own
Le Mans Endurance Series in 2006 with the development of the
Japan Le Mans Challenge, overseen by the Sports Car Endurance Race Operation (SERO). It too lacked competitors and was canceled after its second season. In 2009, a reborn Asian Le Mans Series held an inaugural event in
Okayama,
Japan with two 500 km races. A 1000 km race in
Zhuhai,
China, was held as part of the
Intercontinental Le Mans Cup in 2010, and it was also part of the Asian Le Mans Series. At the
2012 24 Hours of Le Mans the ACO announced the revival of the Asian Le Mans Series for the 2013 series. The format will be run very similarly to the
European Le Mans Series, with the ACO expecting around 16-18 cars for the first relaunched season. However, only 8 cars showed up for the first race of the season, making it the smallest ever grid in ACO sanctioned racing. This record was broken a year later when only six cars started the first race of the 2014 season at
Inje. The ACO further announced that cars running under the
GT300 regulations in the Japanese
Super GT series would be eligible to enter in the Asian Le Mans Series'
GTC class, with organisers from both series working together to create calendars that would allow GT300 teams to compete in both championships. Following the end of the 2014 season, the
ACO took over as the organizer for the series from the S2M Group. A primary issue that supported the takeover included low car counts for the season which prompted the cancellation of a scheduled round in Thailand and limited the series to grow while only in its second year. Plans for 2015 include a three-race calendar to begin later in the year around September then expand to five rounds in 2016 with the first race in the spring. One round will be held on the same weekend as the
FIA World Endurance Championship, similar to the double-headers it shares with the
European Le Mans Series and the
WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Class structure will remain unchanged. In October 2016, the Asian Le Mans Series announced a partnership with the
GT Asia Series. It includes a new Michelin Asia GT Challenge, which is a combined classification for GT3 teams, where the winner will get an invitation to the 24 Hours of Le Mans. In January 2020, the Asian Le Mans Series hosted its first race outside the continent of
Asia when the series traveled to
Australia and
The Bend Motorsport Park, located in the rural town of
Tailem Bend in
South Australia. There they would race on The Bend's 7.770 km (4.828 mi) GT Circuit for a race known as the 4 Hours of The Bend. Despite the success of the race, unfortunately it proved to be a one off as the planned return of the ALMS did not eventuate due to the global
COVID-19 pandemic. It was originally announced that the ALMS would return to The Bend in 2021/22 and 2022/23, but the global pandemic and a change in series focus to an annual series, plus cutting costs for the teams (including travel), has seen that to date (2025), the ALMS has not returned to The Bend or any other race track in Australia. The 2021 season marked the series first venture to the
Middle East racing in the
United Arab Emirates for two
4 Hours of Dubai races at the
Dubai Autodrome followed by two
4 Hours of Abu Dhabi races at the
Yas Marina Circuit. The championship was run entirely within the UAE for two more years until the 2023–24 season when the
4 Hours of Sepang at the
Sepang International Circuit returned. During the
2025 24 Hours of Le Mans weekend, the ACO announced the new premier class of the Asian Le Mans Series will be Hypercar (
LMH or
LMDh) starting in the 2026-27 season. The class is for non-factory, privateer entries only in a pro-am format with at least one bronze driver mandated. ==Format==