FERRARI proved they have finally put an end to the recent dominance of Toyota in the 24 Hours of Le Mans race today as their No 50 car, driven by Antonio Fuoco (Italy), Miguel Molina (Spain) and Niklas Nielsen (Denmark), finished first in the hypercar category.

The Ferrari AF Corse took victory by a margin of just 14 seconds after 311 laps of an incident-packed race featuring multiple spin-offs, more than a dozen cars retired and a relatively close finish, with eight drivers still within a lap of the lead vehicle when the last circuit began.

Ferrari had ended Toyota’s run of five consecutive Le Mans wins last year, and now have two in a row themselves thanks to an assured performance from Fuoco, Molina and Nielsen in their three litre twin-turbo hybrid. None of the trio have been in a winning hypercar at Le Mans before.

Toyota did at least manage the runners-up spot in the No 7 car steered home by Jose Maria Lopez – a last-minute replacement for the British driver Mike Conway, who had to withdraw before the event with a broken collarbone – alongside Kamui Kobayashi (Japan) and Nyck de Vries (Netherlands). In third place was the best-placed Brit, James Calado, in the same Ferrari that won last year and with the same Italian partners, Alessandro Pier Guido and Antonio Giovinazzi.

Outside of the hypercar competition the key British highlight was a fine and unexpected victory for the UK’s United Autosports team car, an Oreco 07-Gibson, in the LMP2 class, with 40-year-old Brit Oliver Jarvis on board alongside two rookie Americans, Bijoy Garg and Nolan Siegel.

In largely cloudy and cool conditions this year’s race was held in intermittent, sometimes heavy rain, allied to frequent interventions from the safety cars – including for a period of well over an hour around midnight, when repairs were needed to the track surrounds and, at one point, a stray dog appeared on the circuit.

In all, the safety cars were patrolling for four and a half hours during the darkness, with some drivers reporting cold limbs and cramp as their cars crept at reduced heat around the circuit, often at less than 100mph.

Among the 14 cars to retire was the BMW driven by nine-times world motorcycle GP champion Valentino Rossi, making his 24 Hours of Le Mans debut in the LMGT3 category.

Of the former or current Formula One drivers in the race, Jenson Button’s Porsche 963 finished eighth, Paul di Resta and Romain Grosjean in Peugeots were 11th and 13th respectively, and Mick Schumacher’s Alpine was forced to retire.