Start At the start, the circuit was wet from a heavy rain that fell less than an hour before the event began. The ambient temperature was between and the track temperature ranged from .
John Elkann, Ferrari's chairperson, waved the
French tricolor at 16:00 local time to start the event in front of 50,000 spectators, as race control declared the running of three
formation laps behind the
safety car because of the wet conditions. Leaving the
grid,
Tommy Milner appeared to experience difficulty accelerating his No. 64 Corvette past the
stalled High Class ORECA LMP2 entry that was slow to drive away from the grid after a mechanic left a movable
jack on the car's rear. Because of a fogged-up front windscreen limiting visibility, Calado, in the No. 51 Ferrari, hit Milner, damaging the Corvette's
diffuser.
(pictured in 2016) was involved in a collision with a
Glickenhaus driven by
Olivier Pla on the first lap of racing. Green flag action commenced after 13 minutes. Buemi stopped on the Mulsanne Straight's side to reset the Toyota fully before driving wide onto Arnage corner's run-off area, Not long after, Milner was struggling to cope with tyre wear, which was affecting the No. 64 Corvette. Molina moved the No. 52 Ferrari past him for the LMGTE Pro lead into the first Mulsanne Chicane after the two drivers were involved in a short duel. Pier Guidi's No. 51 sister Ferrari later overtook Milner for second in category before briefly taking the class lead for himself to begin the third hour. Conway had an anxious moment when he brought the No. 7 Toyota into the pit lane to replace a rear-left tyre with two slow punctures on it. He would later reclaim the overall lead from his teammate Buemi. leading Toyota to inspect the No. 8 entry for potential rim damage. Light rain began falling on portions of the circuit after 2 hours but soon stopped. During the safety car period, several teams made pit stops. Blomqvist's No. 28 Jota entry took the LMP2 lead with
Wayne Boyd's No. 23 United Autosports and James Allen's No. 65 Panis cars second and third in category after Colapinto and Job van Uitert's Racing Team Nederland cars stopped and were demoted to fourth and fifth, respectively.
Dylan Pereira extended the No. 33 TF Aston Martin's gap to 75 seconds over the rest of the LMGTE Am field. Kobayashi's No. 7 Toyota was 73 seconds ahead of Hartley's No. 8 car when racing resumed with the first three overall cars separated by the safety cars.
Stoffel Vandoorne and Boyd battled for the LMP2 lead; the two collided on multiple occasions before Boyd pulled away from Vandoorne in slower traffic through the Porsche Curves and Colapinto was able to challenge Vandoorne for second in class. Hartley made a pit stop in the No. 8 Toyota for a right-rear tyre replacement as a precaution because of a possible puncture and dropped farther back from the No. 7 sister car. Not long after, Colapinto lost control of the No. 26 G-Drive entry at high speed entering the Porsche Curves and hit
Sophia Flörsch's No. 1 Richard Mille Racing car he was passing. As Flörsch reversed across the circuit, Tom Cloet could not react to the slow zone in time and struck the No. 1 car's side with his No. 74 Racing Team India Eurasia entry. Both drivers were unhurt. The No. 1 car was retired; Flörsch was transported to the medical centre since the vehicle's medical light had come on; tests deemed her fit. Safety cars were required for a second time because of the accidents; green flag racing resumed 21 minutes later. The penalty promoted Stevens' No. 65 Panis car to the LMP2 lead before Delétraz's No. 41 WRT entry passed it on the Mulsanne Straight. During the seventh hour, the LMGTE Am-leading Fraga's No. 33 TF Aston Martin and
Egidio Perfetti's No. 56 Project 1 Porsche crashed separately but simultaneously into the first Mulsanne Chicane tyre wall, possibly because both drivers hit debris in the area. The Porsche retired because of car damage as Fraga dropped to fourth in LMGTE Am after making a pit stop for a rear splitter replacement and a right-rear puncture replacement. The safety cars were brought out for the third time for approximately half an hour. When racing resumed, Vaxivière lost control of the Alpine by locking its wheels on a damp patch in the braking zone. He beached sideways in the gravel at the first Mulsanne Chicane and required extraction. The incident promoted Derani's No. 708 Glickenhaus to third, as Vaxivière was demoted to fifth. The safety cars were dispatched for the fourth time for car recovery; racing continued almost half an hour later. Lapierre was able to return the Alpine to third overall following a short duel with Pla's No. 708 Glickenhaus in slower traffic and lapping around two seconds quicker than Pla.
Cooper MacNeil lost control of the sixth-placed LMGTE Pro WeatherTech Porsche on the Ford Chicane entry kerbs and crashed into the left-hand tyre barrier, activating the medical light. MacNeil drove the car slowly into the garage, At mid-point, Kobayashi led overall ahead of his teammate Hartley. Milesi and
Yifei Ye's WRT cars led LMP2, and AF Corse held sway in both the LMGTE classes. The No. 22 United Autosports vehicle's hold on third in LMP2 was relinquished to Jota's No. 28 team when it entered the garage for
alternator repairs, which lasted 90 minutes. Molina subsequently ceded the No. 52 AF Corse Ferrari's hold on third place in LMGTE Pro to Estre's No. 92 Porsche because of a front-left suspension failure requiring half an hour of significant repairs by his team. The main on-track action at this point was the battle for third in LMP2 between Sean Gelael's and later Blomqvist's No. 28 Jota and Stevens' No. 65 Panis cars. began the final lap in LMP2 leading for
Team WRT's No. 41 crew before a broken throttle sensor prevented him and his co-drivers from completing the final lap and achieving class victory. With eight hours remaining, one of Toyota's electronic systems engineers noticed a problem with their two cars on the telemetry fuel pressure trace system. The fuel pump filters at the tank's bottom began clogging with mix of grease from the fuel nozzle connectors and polyurethane particles from a collapsing inner
fuel bladder inside the
tank's fuel cell. The bladder's inner walls rubbed against each other to produce the particles when fuel levels decreased and a small vacuum which collapsed the tank. The problem was traced to the bowsers storing fuel in the pit lane being contaminated with aluminium oxide particles. The team's stints were incrementally reduced from the normal 13 laps just before two-thirds race distance. Lead systems engineer Dominique Gardener thought of a procedure for drivers to press a button on the steering wheel while braking and accelerating in and out of corners that activated a system embedded in the vehicle's electronic system that deactivated and reactivated the fuel pumps to manage fuel consumption, Buemi's No. 8 Toyota fell more than three minutes behind Kobayashi's race-leading No. 7 Toyota when he stopped briefly on the straight after Mulsanne corner to reset the car by changing multiple gear settings. In LMGTE Pro, both factory Porsches battled for third as Catsburg's No. 63 Corvette drew closer to Calado and Ledogar's No. 51 Ferrari for the category lead when Ledogar made a pit stop to change brakes. In the 21st hour, Pereira and
Ben Keating were able to recover from TF Sport's earlier puncture by lapping faster than Perrodo's and Alessio Rovera's No. 83 Ferrari and moved the No. 33 Aston Martin back to the LMGTE Am lead. Hartley's second-placed No. 8 Toyota drove into the pit lane for less than two minutes to repair a malfunctioning right-hand side door. A mechanic did this using a laptop they plugged into the car. The stop dropped him a lap behind López, the overall race leader. The No. 31 WRT car relinquished the category lead they had held for 135 consecutive laps to Ye's No. 41 sister vehicle. Makowiecki's fourth-placed LMGTE Pro No. 91 Porsche braked later than expected from a loss of brake pressure into the Ford Chicane and removed the car's rear diffuser and bodywork housing after driving over a grassy hill just off the racing surface. Race control instructed Makowiecki to enter the pit lane. Rear-end repairs lasted more than five minutes, but the No. 91 car retained fourth in class. Just as he began the final lap with less than three minutes remaining, Ye's LMP2-leading No. 41 WRT car stopped down the hill past the Dunlop Bridge because of a broken throttle sensor creating an electrical short circuit that temporarily turned the engine's
electronic control unit off. Frijns' No. 31 sister car inherited the LMP2 lead; he held off Blomqvist's approaching No. 28 Jota entry in slower GT traffic,
Finish Kobayashi maintained the overall lead the No. 7 Toyota had held for 178 consecutive laps to finish first after 371 laps and achieve his, Conway and López's first Le Mans victory—Toyota's fourth in succession. They finished two laps over Buemi, Hartley and Nakajima's No. 8 sister car. Ferrari claimed its first victory in LMGTE Pro since with the No. 51 AF Corse car ahead of the No. 63 Corvette by 41.686 seconds after leading for the final 205 laps. ==Post-race==