diff --git a/test/e2e_node/remote/gce/gce_runner.go b/test/e2e_node/remote/gce/gce_runner.go
index 8e9e7d8ecdb..b3264c2da1d 100644
--- a/test/e2e_node/remote/gce/gce_runner.go
+++ b/test/e2e_node/remote/gce/gce_runner.go
@@ -644,7 +644,9 @@ func (g *GCERunner) imageToInstanceName(imageConfig *internalGCEImage) string {
 	}
 	// For benchmark test, node name has the format 'machine-image-uuid' to run
 	// different machine types with the same image in parallel
-	return imageConfig.machine + "-" + imageConfig.image + "-" + uuid.New().String()[:8]
+	name := imageConfig.machine + "-" + imageConfig.image + "-" + uuid.New().String()[:8]
+	// Sometimes the image is too long, we need instance names to have a max length of 63
+	return name[:63]
 }
 
 func (g *GCERunner) registerGceHostIP(host string) error {