Finishing the 24 Hours of Le Mans is proof of reliability. The founding principle of the race has ensured its longevity and worldwide renown. The idea was to encourage manufacturers and teams to take care of every detail of the cars they produced by subjecting them to the ultimate test of reliability.
In this way, the innovations developed over 90 years at Le Mans gradually found their way into everyman's car.
Aerodynamics with Bugatti, Cadillac and Porsche, disc brakes with the Jaguar Type-C in 1953, turbochargers, headlamps, windscreen wipers, iodine headlamps, then LED headlamps... Le Mans is the testing ground for the modern car, right up to Audi's first victory in 2006 with a diesel engine, followed by a hybrid engine.
The race evolves with the times, celebrating the quest for performance, which implies not only speed and reliability, but also efficiency and durability.
Each year, a place on the grid is reserved for a project involving a new technology, allowing a team to use the race as a full-scale laboratory.
