919 joins Porsche's Le Mans hall of fame

This weekend, Porsche put a 919-shaped wrecking ball through Audi's five-year winning streak at Le Mans.

The V4 hybrid secured Porsche's first overall victory at the legendary endurance race since 1998, joining such icons as the 917 and 962 in Stuttgart's roster of La Sarthe icons.

With Formula 1 driver Nico Hulkenberg, Nick Tandy and Earl Bamber leading a Porsche one-two in the #19 919, the victory takes Porsche's Le Mans winning tally to an unparalleled 17.

VW Group stablemate Audi has managed, to date, 13 overall victories.

The #19 LMP1 Porsche proved reliable throughout the race, but really made its mark during the night. Under the cover of darkness, the Porsche was lapping the eight-and-a-half mile La Sarthe circuit at an average of 153mph.

"It was a flawless race," said Hulkenberg after the race. "We had great pace, we were mistake-free, with a good flow, a good rhythm. I'd like to thank everybody for pushing like hell for the last couple of months without much sleep. Today is the payback and the reward for that..."

Toyota's TS040 could only manage a sixth place finish, while the radical, front-wheel-drive, 1250bhp GT-R LM NISMO proved to be hugely off the LMP1 prototype pace, struggling to hold its own against the lesser LMP2 cars.

The #21 Nissan was the first to take an early bath after a suspension failure left it stranded on track, while an impromptu gearbox detonation forced Jann Mardenborough and the second car to throw in the towel early on Sunday afternoon.

The final Nissan of the trio did manage to limp across the line on Sunday afternoon, but only to finish unclassified and 153 laps behind the winning Porsche.

"It's been much, much harder than any of us imagined," Simon Marshall, Nissan's assistant race engineer told us. "We have run out of time, and just to get one car to the finish was a success..."

But Porsche's win is significant, demonstrating the LMP1 category isn't such a closed shop as Audi's recent dominance suggests.

It also sees the spaceship-like 919 Hybrid join other legendary Le Mans hall-of-famers like the ones above. Tell us your favourite below.

The car that gave Porsche its first overall win at Le Mans. In 1970 British driver Richard Attwood and German legend Hans Herrmann - a former team-mate of Juan Fangio and Stirling Moss in the 1950s Mercedes Silver Arrows F1 squad - piloted this 917 to victory at La Sarthe.

For many motorsport fans, the 917 - all 585bhp and 850kg of it - remains the most revered racing car of all time.

Driven by Dr. Helmut Marko and Gijs van Lennep, this magnificent Martini-liveried, magnesium-chassis 917 brought Porsche more Le Mans success when it was crowned the outright winner of in 1971. Everything looks better with a Martini stripe, yes?

Yes. Yes it does. Take this 1977 Porsche 936/77 that won the 1977 24 Hours of Le Mans as another example. It was driven by Jürgen Barth, Hurley Haywood and a certain Jacky Ickx.

Moby Dick never won Le Mans, mainly due to its insatiable thirst. However that doesn't make it any less of a legend. Trust us, we've driven it. 

It has 845bhp, a four-speed manual gearbox (where first gear is good for 100mph), a locked rear differential, turbo lag you can measure in minutes... and looks like a bloody big whale.

The 956 bestrode the 1980s endurance racing scene like a colossus. It, and its 962 successor, would win Le Mans seven times.

It was pretty tidy round the Nurburgring, too. The late Stefan Bellof lapped a 956 round the deeply scary Nordschleife in a barely believable 6m11s seconds. Now, in anyone's book that' s fast. Like, really fast.

Nicknamed ‘Baby', this 935 had a tiny 1.4-litre engine from a 911, but fitted with a turbo the size of a wheelie bin.

It was developed in just four months, and reach its intended target weight of 735kg, Porsche cut the heavy steel floor and bulkheads from the car and replaced by an aluminum cage, creating a tubular framed chassis - an innovation at the time.

Before the 919 did the business in 2015, this was Porsche's last Le Mans winner. On the occasions the mid-engined, twin-turbo, 600bhp prototype sometimes didn't think it was an aeroplane, it proved to be mighty reliable.

The 911 GT1's near-unbreakability helped Porsche seal the 1998 win at Le Mans because: despite the GT1 being slower than both the rival Toyota and Mercedes, it ended up crossing the line first to bring a Porsche one-two (how fitting) on the firm's fiftieth anniversary year. Talk about good timing.