Daytime The weather at the start of the race were wet. The air temperature throughout the race ranged from and the track temperature between . 263,500 people attended the event. The French tricolour was waved at 15:00
Central European Summer Time (CEST) by actor
Brad Pitt to start the race. Heavy rain fell on the circuit in the hour before the event started, forcing the race organisers to start it behind the safety car for the first time in history. During the reconnaissance lap, the Ford No. 66 GT was pushed into the garage after it lost gearbox pressure making it difficult to change gears. The safety car remained on the track for 53 minutes after which the cars were allowed to overtake when the track begun to dry. Jani maintained his pole position advantage heading into the first corner.
Mike Conway's No. 6 Toyota tried unsuccessfully to pass Bernhard heading into Mulsanne corner, allowing Lotterer to attack him entering the
Dunlop Bridge. The Audis passed the No. 5 Toyota of
Sébastien Buemi for fourth and fifth. Conway overtook Bernhard on the way into the first Mulsanne Chicane for second and took the lead from Jani at the eighth lap's conclusion. The battle for the outright lead continued to be a multi-car duel between representatives of the three manufacturers as they were separated by less than three seconds. This fluctuated due to the various levels of traffic. Webber's No. 1 Porsche and Kobayashi's No. 6 Toyota exchanged the lead through the following pit stop cycle and the next three hours as the Toyotas were on track longer. This meant they ran a lap more at full speed in their attempt at making one less stop later in the race. The lead of LMGTE Pro was left to Vilander's Risi Ferrari after Briscoe relieved Westbrook in the No. 69 Ford. Vilander pulled away from Briscoe, whose performance faded in the early phase of his first stint, and he was caught by
Joey Hand's sister No. 68 car which was on average 1.6 seconds faster. Hand moved out of Briscoe's
slipstream and overtook him on the Mulsanne Straight for second in class. Hand caught the Vilander's category-leading vehicle and the two battled for several minutes until Hand overhauled Vilander and Briscoe followed soon after. In LMP2 Matthew Rao took over from Merhi in the class leading No. 44 Manor, but he was under pressure from
Ryo Hirakawa's No. 46
TDS Racing car in second and
Will Stevens' third-placed No. 26 G-Drive entry with the trio close by one other. Four hours and fifty minutes into the race, Rao spun at the Dunlop Chicane. This promoted Hirakawa into the lead of LMP2 while Rao fell to fourth. Kobayashi and later Sarrazin took the overall lead from Bernhard after a local slow zone procedure was activated for trackside officials to recover Taittinger's No. 28 Pegasus Morgan. Tattiner misjudged the braking point for the right-hand Mulsanne Corner and was beached in the gravel trap. LMGTE Am had been led by Porsche from the start. The No. 88 Abu Dhabi-Proton car and the No. 78 KCMG entry exchanged the class lead until Lamy's No. 98 Aston Martin broke up the monopoly midway through the seventh hour when he overtook
Christian Ried for second and began to draw closer to Long. This came as the Audis were instructed by race control to enter their garages for repairs to their number lighting systems. Repairs to both Audis took less than six minutes each, and the team's drivers rejoined in the same positions they were in earlier. In LMP2 the safety cars had split the field, leaving
Pierre Thiriet's No. 46 TDS Racing vehicle two minutes and 48 seconds ahead of Lapierre's second-place No. 36 Signatech Alpine car as it made a pit stop. It did not, however, have much effect on the GTE classes as the gaps at the front of their respective fields was narrow. The LMGTE Am lead changed midway through the twelfth hour from
Khaled Al Qubaisi's No. 88 Abu Dhabi-Proton Porsche to Bell's No. 62
Scuderia Corsa Ferrari. Not long after Stevens' No. 26 G-Drive Oreca served a one-minute stop-and-go penalty for speeding in a slow zone. He fell a further minute and a half behind Hirakawa's No. 46 TDS Racing car but stayed in third place in LMP2. Several LMGTE cars took the opportunity to change
brake discs at this point in the morning, including the LMGTE Pro leading Risi Ferrari of Fisichella. Halfway through the 13th hour, Kobayashi relinquished the No. 6 Toyota's hold on first to Lieb's No. 2 Porsche for five laps when he made an unscheduled pit stop to repair minor left-hand side bodywork damage. Lieb could not establish a healthy advantage as a local slow zone procedure was needed for the No. 13 Rebellion of Tuscher who retired just before the entrance to the second Mulsanne Chicane with a
fuel injector failure that shut down the
R-One's engine. Just after the slow zone was lifted, Lieb ran over some gravel that was strewn on the track and picked up a slow puncture. He was forced into the pit lane for a replacement wheel and fuel. Davidson's No. 5 Toyota inherited second. He started closing up to his teammate Kobayashi before Lieb retook the lead through the following pit stop cycle. The safety car separated the LMP1 field as Conway's and Buemi's Toyotas made pit stops. After racing resumed they slipstreamed one another in slower traffic on the Mulsanne Straight and Buemi overtook Conway around the outside for second. Conway and Buemi retook first and second when Jani's No. 2 Porsche made a pit stop from the lead by the close of the 17th hour and emerged close behind the pair. Hand later relieved Müller in the No. 68 Ford and got the car back to the front of LMGTE Pro by overtaking Malucelli on the first part of the Mulsanne Straight. He began to pull clear with 4 remaining. Lieb's No. 2 Porsche returned to the outright lead, but he ceded it to Davidson's faster No. 5 Toyota entering Mulsanne corner. The sister No. 6 Toyota had an anxious moment when Kobayashi lost control of the car into Karting corner and came to a rest in the gravel trap. He returned to third without needing external aid but lost 20 seconds to teammate Davidson. The pressure put on Ford by Ferrari in LMGTE Pro eased when Vilander lost control of the rear of the No. 82 car leaving the Porsche Curves but retained second in class despite getting temporarily beached in the gravel trap. Kobayashi bowed out of the battle for the outright victory when he entered the garage to fix the No. 6 Toyota's floor, which was damaged during the night when it hit a slower car and have a precautionary cooling system check done so it could get to the end of the race. Although repairs to the car lost it three laps to Davidson's sister No. 5 Toyota it retained its hold on third as the No. 8 Audi was ten laps behind in fourth. Davidson and later Nakajima matched Jani's pace. He could not get a consistent rate of lap times or get closer to the front of the pack. This was after Porsche changed its strategy to match the one employed by Toyota throughout the event, which had the No. 2 car stay on track for 14 laps at a time. Fuel mileage was also a concern for the LMGTE Pro leaders as Briscoe's No. 69 Ford stopped one lap later than all other cars in the class. That drew him closer to Vilander's No. 82 Risi Ferrari as Hand's sister No. 68 Ford was responding to his pace. Jani overcame the gap and overtook Nakajima seconds later to take the chequered flag for the No. 2 Porsche and the marque's 18th overall victory at Le Mans. It was Jani and Lieb's first Le Mans victory and Dumas' second after triumphing in . The sister No. 6 Toyota of Sarrazin, Conway and Kobayashi finished three laps behind in second, while the No. 8 Audi of Duval, di Grassi and Jarvis took third to maintain Audi's record of getting one car on the podium since debuting in . The No. 36 Signatech Alpine of Lapierre,
Gustavo Menezes and
Stéphane Richelmi led the final 196 laps to take the victory in LMP2. The second-placed No. 26
G-Drive Oreca of Rusinov, Rast and Stevens finished on the same lap as the Alpine. It gave Lapierre his second successive category win and Menezes and Richelmi's first. The all-Russian SMP Racing BR01 of
Vitaly Petrov,
Kirill Ladygin and
Viktor Shaytar, which came four laps behind in third, completed the class podium. On the day of the 50th anniversary of their first overall 24 Hours of Le Mans victory in ,
Ford won the LMGTE Pro class with the No. 68 American entry of Hand, Bourdais and Müller. Risi Competizione's No. 82 Ferrari were provisionally one minute adrift in second position with Fisichella, Vilander and Malucelli after they and the category winning Ford had led all but 26 laps of the race. Ford CGR USA's sister No. 69 car of Briscoe, Dixon and Westbrook was third. After the race the No. 68 Ford was penalised a total of 70 seconds towards its total race time for being deemed to have sped in a slow zone and for having faulty wheel speed sensors. Risi's No. 82 Ferrari had twenty seconds added to its total time and fined €5,000 for ignoring multiple black flags with an orange disc that were deployed to instruct the team to rectify a faulty leader light board after Ford CGR filed a protest over the technical problem in the final hour of the event. The result of the penalties reduced the No. 68 Ford's margin of victory over the No. 82 Risi Ferrari to 10.2 seconds. Americans also led LMGTE Am with the
Scuderia Corsa's No. 62 Ferrari of Bell,
Jeff Segal, and
Bill Sweedler edging out the fellow No. 83 Ferrari of
AF Corse, driven by
Emmanuel Collard,
Rui Águas and Perrodo. Al Qubaisi, Long, and
David Heinemeier Hansson were third in class for
Abu Dhabi-Proton. There were 28 outright lead changes during the race; four cars reached the front of the field. The No. 6 Toyota led thirteen times for 173 laps, more than any other car. The No. 2 Porsche led twelve times for a total of 51 laps. ==Post-race==