24 photos from the Le Mans 24 Hours

Last weekend saw the 83rd running of endurance racing's biggest, toughest challenge: the 24 hours of Le Mans. It was a proper peach of a race, too.

For the first time in five years, Audi weren't the team popping bottles at the top step of the podium on Sunday afternoon, with VW Group stablemate Porsche taking victory at La Sarthe for the first time since 1998.

Formula 1 driver Nico Hulkenberg, Nick Tandy and Earl Bamber brought the V4 hybrid 919 home for a Stuttgart one-two, taking Porsche's Le Mans winning tally to an unparalleled 17.

And what about away from the podium? Well, while the Nurburgring 24 Hour race is seen as the hipper, purer and more feral strand of endurance racing, we have to say that Le Mans doesn't do a bad job of mixing the weird with the wonderful.

Gallery: the best photos from 2015's Nurburgring 24

Unlike the N24, there's an dense British presence at Le Mans, meaning plenty of sunburn and Three Lions shirts, not to mention many tasty cars in the campsites. Strolling from Tetre Rouge down to the Porsche Curves at night, you'll see thousands of petrolheads in their natural habitat: curled up at the side of the track - normally in a Tog 20 sleeping bag - with headphones forced so far into their cochlea that Radio Le Mans has become their subconscious.

Quite rightly, as the racing at Le Mans is tight, noisy, exciting and unpredictable.

But because to the sheer size of La Sarthe - an 8.5-mile circuit that starts on a proper, purpose-built track, before blending into broken public roads that snake round a pocket of small villages of western France - getting around the place can be quite a trek. Especially if you're not actually there.

Which is why we dispatched master snapper Drew Gibson on a fold-up Brompton bike to capture the magic of Le Mans for your pleasure.

With matchsticks in his eyes and caffeine in his veins, Drew spent the entire 24 hours filling his SD cards to the brim, returning with some amazing photography. Click through the gallery above to fast-track your way through the 24-hour race.

With the cutting edge tech that's going into the top-flight LMP1 cars, proper noise and close racing in the GT classes, and Porsche on the rise, are we entering a new golden age of endurance racing? Let us know your thoughts below...

Photography: Drew Gibson