2018 24 Hours of Le Mans

The 86th 24 Hours of Le Mans (French: 86^e 24 Heures du Mans) was an 24-hour automobile endurance race for Le Mans Prototype and Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance cars entered by teams of three drivers each held from 16 to 17 June 2018 at the Circuit de la Sarthe, close to Le Mans, France. It was the 86th running of the event, as organised by the automotive group, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO), since 1923. The race was the second round of the 2018–19 FIA World Endurance Championship, with 36 of the race's 60 entries contesting the series. Approximately 256,900 people attended the race. A test day was held two weeks prior to the race on 3 June.

A Toyota TS050 Hybrid car shared by Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Fernando Alonso began from pole position after Nakajima recorded the fastest lap time in the third qualifying session. It and the sister Toyota of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López exchanged the lead for most of the first half of the race until Buemi took a one-minute stop-and-go penalty for speeding in a slow zone that was enforced for an accident during the night. Alonso and Nakajima retook the lead from their teammates in the 16th hour and maintained it for the rest of the race to win. It was Alonso, Buemi and Nakajima's first Le Mans win and Toyota's first in its 20th try. The sister Toyota of Conway, Kobayashi and López finished two laps behind in second, and a Rebellion R13 vehicle driven by Thomas Laurent, Gustavo Menezes and Mathias Beche completed the podium in third.

The Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class was led for 360 consecutive laps by the G-Drive Racing Oreca 07 car of Roman Rusinov, Andrea Pizzitola and Jean-Éric Vergne and was the first team to finish the race. It was later disqualified for running an illegal refuelling component and G-Drive lost an appeal. The class victory was taken by the Signatech Alpine team of Nicolas Lapierre, Pierre Thiriet and André Negrão. A Graff-SO24 team of Vincent Capillaire, Jonathan Hirschi and Tristan Gommendy was second and a United Autosports Ligier JS P217 car driven by Hugo de Sadeleer, Will Owen and Juan Pablo Montoya finished third. On its 70th anniversary Porsche won both of the Le Mans Grand Touring Professional (LMGTE) categories with Michael Christensen, Kévin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor's No. 92 car ahead of the No. 91 911 RSR car of Richard Lietz, Gianmaria Bruni and Frédéric Makowiecki in Le Mans Grand Touring Professional (LMGTE Pro) and Dempsey-Proton's trio of Matt Campbell, Christian Ried and Julien Andlauer winning in Le Mans Grand Touring Amateur (LMGTE Am).

The result increased Alonso, Buemi and Nakajima's lead in the LMP Drivers' Championship to 20 points over their teammates Conway, Kobayashi and López. Beche, Laurent and Menezes retained third place and Lapierre, Thiriet and Negrão's victory in LMP2 moved them to fourth. In the GTE Drivers' Championship Christensen and Estre took the lead from Billy Johnson, Stefan Mücke and Olivier Pla. Toyota further extended their lead over Rebellion Racing in the LMP1 Teams' Championship to 27 points as Porsche went further ahead of Ford in the GTE Manufacturers' Championship with six races remaining in the season.