MOTORSPORT: Three cheers for a classic Le Mans

For more than half the great French race this year Toyota was headed for its first victory, but it was not to be.

Porsche made a strong comeback, after 16 years, and Australia's Mark Webber led in one of the 919s late in the event.

But it was to be Audi, yet again – first and second. The third straight year of success for successive models of the diesel hybrid R18 eTron quattros. And the 13th victory for the four-ring marque since 1999, leaving it just three short now of Porsche's record 16.

All seven cars from the three manufacturers had troubles. The Audis that ultimately prevailed both required turbocharger changes. They finished three laps apart.

In the end they had not only the speed required but, most importantly, the reliability.

The winning car was driven by Switzerland's Marcel Fassler, Frenchman Benoit Treluyer and Germany's Andre Lotterer – three-time victors together. They had lost 17 minutes – and five laps – in the pits for the turbo change.

Audi Sport boss Wolfgang Ullrich said the manufacturer was baffled by its turbo problems.

"We have won already with this turbo and we had no problems with it in the past," Ullrich said.

Audi's experience of winning at Le Mans before against faster rivals proved invaluable this time.

"We were not at the level of the others. We were not able to do the fastest lap, but that's not the first time that has happened to us," Ullrich said.

"You have to find a strategy for 24 hours – and the race developed in our favour.

"This is a result of the hard work we put in, but maybe lady luck smiled on us as well."

Despite the massive disappointment for Toyota of failing to win yet again, its third place was a massive achievement – five laps behind the victorious Audi after losing 50 minutes for repairs following a multi-car accident in rain early in the race that eliminated the third Audi and had left that Toyota eight laps down.

The other TS040 retired just short of 14 hours after an electrical fire.

The 2-litre V4 Porsche that Webber shared with young New Zealander Brendon Hartley and German veteran Timo Bernhard had a drivetrain failure just a couple of hours short of the chequered flag.

It had lost the lead the Aussie ex-F1 star had found himself in inside four hours of the finish.

"We never expected to be in such a great position towards the end of the race," Webber said.

"There is never a good retirement at Le Mans, but this is one of the best you could have – we went so far and learned so much.

"If you stop early you learn nothing. When you stop with a lap to go it would be even more brutal.

"It was our [Porsche's] first time here [together] and we were very close to a podium.

"We had a crack ... and we got within a couple of hours of a pretty special result. We made our presence felt."

After the two flips in a Mercedes-Benz that denied him a start in 1999, Webber said he was a better driver for his first race at Le Mans and would be better for it next year.

Toyota's third place was bitter-sweet for the Japanese manufacturer.

"There is certainly a huge amount of disappointment in our team because our TS040 Hybrids had enough speed to win the race," team president Yoshiaki Kinoshita said.

"But part of the magic of Le Mans is that it is so unpredictable and challenging. Today we only needed to avoid misfortune.

"Sadly that wasn't the case, but that's motorsport – and we have to accept the result.

"We will come back stronger for this experience and we have a world championship to fight for [it still leads the World Endurance Championship].

"All team members performed brilliantly in this race, not only to repair the damage but to stay positive and bring home third position.

"Everyone [representing all three manufacturers] fought extremely hard and showed great competitive spirit."

Nissan has already flagged that it will enter the premier LMP1 category against the big three next year, but it will need to make drastic improvement after its ZEOD (zero emission on demand) entry this year was the first retirement.

Ferrari has muttered several times over the past year about a return to Le Mans – and there were more noises, albeit confusing, from the company's president, Luca Di Montezemolo, in the Wall Street Journal last week.

Di Montezemolo appears to be trying to use Le Mans as wedge in his lobbying for changes to the new hybrid rules in Formula One.

"No one wants to watch a driver save gas or tyres," he said.

But the F1 Di Montezemolo now so detests is much like sports car racing, only shorter. And saving cars to the finish is precisely what sports car racing is about. Even more so, and especially so over the 24 hours of Le Mans.    

A Zytek-Nissan Z11SN won the LMP2 class this year, an AF Corse Ferrari the GTE Pro category after its Aston Martin rival lost five laps with a power steering problem, and an Aston Martin Vantage took the GTE Am win ahead of Porsche and Ferrari rivals.

More Le Mans pics in motoring.com.au gallery

Six of the top 10 finishers on the superspeedway had Hendrick engines.

Australia's Marcos Ambrose struggled to get his Ford balanced at the track where he set a scintillating qualifying lap two years ago.

Ambrose finished a lap down in 25th at the weekend but is now looking forward to the road course round at Sonoma in California next weekend.

Nitiss has taken a three-point lead in the series over Solberg, while previous leader Andreas Bakkerud, another Norwegian, has dropped to fourth after not making the final at Hell.

Swede Mattias Ekstrom and his countryman and teammate Pontus Tidernand ran a pair of Audi S1s there for the first time but did not make the final either, while Jacques Villeneuve did not even make the semi-finals.

Meanwhile, major format changes are in the wind for the World Rally Championship next year, with points likely to be awarded at the end of each day of events and a performance weighting introduced on the final stage to reward being fastest throughout a rally.

The changes are expected to be finalised at the September meeting of the World Motorsport Council.