The 24 Hours of Le Mans (24 Heures du Mans) is the world's most famous sports car endurance race, held annually at Circuit de la Sarthe near Le Mans, France, in the French
Sarthe département. It is organised by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (A.C.O). The first race was held on May 26 and 27 1923, and has since been run annually in June, with exceptions occurring in 1956, when the race was held in July, and 1968, when it was held in September, due to nation-wide political turmoils in spring; see May 1968. The race has been cancelled twice: once in the year 1936 (Great Depression), and from 1940 to 1948 (World War II).

The 12 Hours of Sebring, 24 Hours of Daytona, and 24 Hours of Le Mans were once widely considered to be the trifecta of sports car racing; driver Ken Miles would have been the only driver to win all three in the same year, but an error in the team orders of the Ford GT40 team at Le Mans in 1966 took the win from him, although he finished first.

The race is run on a semi-permanent track which, in its current configuration, is 13.650 km (8.482 mi) long, utilizing mostly country roads that remain open to the public for the majority of the year. Over the years, several purpose-built sections have replaced the normal roads, especially the Porsche Curves section which bypasses the dangerous former Maison Blanche section between buildings. The permanent Bugatti Circuit surrounds the facilities at start/finish.

Usually, around 50 cars race simultaneously in a number of different categories and classes. Current classes are LMP1 and LMP2 for "Le Mans prototypes," and LMGT1 and LMGT2 for Gran Turismo, or "GT" classes. The overall winner is the car that covers the greatest distance in 24 hours of continuous racing. This rule appears obvious, but the 1966 race saw a surprise winner among the three Ford GT40s that were leading. Ford ordered the leading #1 car to slow down to let the #2 and the #5 cars catch up, in order to create a photo opportunity[1] with all three GT40s crossing the line 1, 2, 3 in a staged finish, only a few meters apart. Yet the #2 car that had covered the same number of laps (360) was pronounced the winner, as it had started further behind on the grid and thus covered a slightly bigger distance in the same time.