The 2010s began with four wins on the trot for Audi, with Marcel Fässler, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer winning three, interrupted only by team-mates Loïc Duval, McNish and Kristensen in 2013. This was the Dane’s ninth win, a record that is unlikely to be beaten.

The 2014 season was pivotal, as it marked a push towards hybrid technology. It had been seen first in the WEC’s top class in 2012, but the ante was raised as twice the hybrid power was now being allowed. Pleasingly, the manufacturers attacked this concept differently. Audi chose to use a flywheel system that fed the front axle. Porsche opted for a lithium ion battery to harness the megajoules produced under acceleration and braking before releasing them to the front axle. Toyota went for storing energy in a super capacitor and then feeding that to both axles. Better still, their different approaches meant that their cars all had performance advantages at different points around a lap, and Audi gained bragging rights by winning this sharpened contest.

Then came a sea change in 2015 as Porsche took its first outright win with a works entry since 1987. Success came thanks to Earl Bamber, Nico Hülkenberg and Nick Tandy. The Hulk was the first current F1 driver to win since Gachot and Herbert won for Mazda in 1991, so there was kudos aplenty when he took the trophy to the following grand prix.

Toyota was finally set for victory in 2016, but cruelly fell at the last, with Porsche taking the gift as Audi failed to add one more Le Mans win before quitting. It was Porsche again in 2017, but then it too took its leave and with only two of the six LMP1 starters finishing, two LMP2 crews completed the podium, with Jackie Chan DC Racing’s Oliver Jarvis, Thomas Laurent and Ho-Pin Tung just one lap away from what would have been an historic upset. Then, winning the prize for perseverance, Toyota landed its first Le Mans win in 2018, with Fernando Alonso sharing its winning car with Sébastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima, and they won again in 2019 when their sister car had late-race puncture issues.

One of the features of the race is the interest supplied by the other classes and the late 2010s were marked by glorious action in GTE Pro, with six manufacturers entering 17 cars in 2018. Their racing was nose to tail in a changing mix of Ferrari, Ford, Corvette, Aston Martin, Porsche and BMW.

Toyota made it three in a row in 2020. Then came the first year of Hypercar in 2021, as the new top class. There were just five takers, with two from Toyota, two from Glickenhaus and one from Alpine. Despite a fuel pick-up problem that required shorter stints, Mike Conway’s frustrations at Le Mans were replaced with success, sharing with Kamui Kobayashi and José María López. The most explosive drama came in LMP2 at the start of the last lap when one Team WRT ORECA failed and the other got home by just 0.7sec. Not surprisingly, Toyota won in 2022 again, this time through Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa.

The anticipation for this year’s centenary is extreme, not just for Ferrari’s return to top-line sports car racing, but also for the top class entry soaring from five to 16.