Austrian racing driver Ferdinand Habsburg, great-grandson of Emperor Charles I of Austria, will once again give special meaning to one of the most prestigious events in world motorsport, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Every lap completed by the professional driver will help children supported by Mary’s Meals, a global charity providing school meals to more than three million children in some of the world’s poorest communities.
Following the success of the 2025 campaign, Race for Meals returns for a new edition. Endurance racing star Ferdinand Habsburg will take to the iconic Le Mans circuit on 13-14 June 2026, driven by a challenge that goes far beyond sporting competition: he is calling for supporters to sponsor each lap he completes with €22, the amount it costs Mary’s Meals to feed a child for an entire school year.
“I really embrace the vision of Mary’s Meals and I have seen the fruits of this work. I want to help wherever I can, and sports can play a role in bringing hope to the world” said Ferdinand Habsburg. “I want to ensure that these children no longer have to worry about where their next meal is coming from”.
In 2025, Habsburg and the generous supporters of the initiative helped provide meals for 1,760 children. This year, the Austrian driver is raising the bar with the ambitious goal of reaching even more children and supporting three schools in Malawi.
Before the start of the 2026 season, Habsburg visited Mary’s Meals’ school feeding programme in Malawi, where the charity has been serving daily school meals since 2003. During the visit, he met the pupils and teachers at the schools that were supported through last year’s campaign, witnessing first-hand the impact of the programme on children and their communities, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the significant challenges and unmet needs that remain across the country.
Today, more than a quarter of Malawi’s pre-primary and primary school children receive Mary’s Meals every school day (1.3 million children).[1] This support is particularly significant as fewer than half of children in Malawi complete primary school, while many families continue to face food insecurity, with 6.8 million people experiencing insufficient food consumption.[2]
“I sat with four-year-olds in a class, where we ate together on the floor, and I saw my nephew in their eyes as they played”, Habsburg recalled. “All I could think about was that it costs me 22 euros (as much as my breakfast this morning) for this young, playful boy to get food in this place for a whole school year!”
The endurance racer is one of Mary’s Meals’ Youth Ambassadors in Austria and actively encourages young people to engage with the charity in their own countries and become part of the mission. Supporters can already get behind his next challenge by sponsoring his laps at Le Mans and helping to provide life-changing school meals to children experiencing hunger.
The next race will take place on 13–14 June 2026, and the countdown is now on to see whether he can go beyond the 385 laps completed last year and reach even more children through the initiative.
For more information, visit https://www.marysmeals.org/campaigns/habsburg-races-24-hours-of-le-mans-2026
About Mary’s Meals
- Mary’s Meals works with communities to serve vital school meals to more than 3 million children in 16 countries: Benin, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Kenya, Lebanon, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
- Mary’s Meals is a simple idea that works. The charity provides children with one daily meal in a place of education in areas where hunger and poverty often stand in the way of learning.
- Local communities own and run Mary’s Meals programmes and, wherever possible, meals are made with locally procured food, supporting local economies.
- In schools where children receive Mary’s Meals, enrolment, attendance, concentration and participation can improve.
- The global average cost to provide a child with Mary’s Meals for a whole school year is €22, $25.20 USD, or £19.15
