The race was controlled virtually throughout by the polesitting #8 Audi of Lucas di Grassi, Oliver Jarvis and Loic Duval, but the #6 Toyota crew was able to stay close enough in the closing stages to grab the lead in the final hour by virtue of not equipping fresh tyres at the final pitstop.

That allowed Kobayashi to turn a seven-second deficit to Duval into a 13-second advantage that he had to nurse on worn tyres through the final 45 minutes of the race.

At first, the gap came down rapidly, but stabilised at four to six seconds until the final 10 minutes, when a renewed charge from Duval saw the Audi man reduce Kobayashi's lead to under two seconds.

But the Frenchman ran out of time to get close enough to attempt a pass, Kobayashi crossing the finish line with 1.439s in hand to take Toyota's first WEC win since Bahrain in 2014 - and his own first win since joining the team this year.

Third place went to the #1 Porsche of Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard, whose winning streak came to an end on a day when the Weissach marque seemed to lack ultimate pace.

Bernhard passed Sarrazin for second place after the fourth round of pitstops, only for the #1 car to fall back behind the #6 Toyota after the next round of stops. Webber brought home the car 17.3s off the lead.

The #5 Toyota of Sebastien Buemi, Anthony Davidson and Kazuki Nakajima was never a major factor for the win, settling into fourth place early on and ending up 53s behind its victorious sister car at the finish.

Points leaders Neel Jani, Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb had to settle for fifth in the #2 Porsche, which had suffered a problem in qualifying that seemed to translate into a subdued race pace. The trio lost further time with a front bodywork change at the halfway point.

Worse luck was to befall the #7 Audi car of Andre Lotterer, Marcel Fassler and Benoit Treluyer, which suffered a hybrid system failure early on and was forced to retire after a long spell in the garage to remove the front driveshaft - which rendered the R18 illegal.

The LMP1-L class was won by the #13 Rebellion, as its sole rival - the #4 ByKolles - caught fire at the start of the third hour and retired.

G-Drive wins LMP2 epic

The battle for honours in the LMP2 class was equally thrilling, with the #26 G-Drive Oreca car of Will Stevens, Roman Rusinov and Alex Brundle beating #43 RGR Sport by Morand car of Filipe Albuquerque, Ricardo Gonzalez and Bruno Senna to finally take its first win of the year.

G-Drive led the majority of the race, but couldn't quite stretch its stints as long as the RGR Sport Ligier - and when Stevens brought in the #26 for the final time, he came out just behind Senna in the #43.

Stevens went on to slipstream his way past Senna along the main straight, but in doing so he crossed the white line demarcating the edge of the track on the right-hand side, as he positioned his Oreca right by the pitwall.

The Briton was therefore instructed to give back the position to Senna, which he did before finally getting back ahead legally to grab the win with five minutes to go.

Third place went to the LMP2 points-leading #36 Signatech Alpine of Nicolas Lapierre, Gustavo Menezes and Stephane Richelmi, followed by the #30 ESM Ligier of WEC debutant Antonio Giovinazzi, Sean Gelael and Giedo van der Garde.

The #44 Manor of Roberto Merhi, Richard Bradley and Matt Rao had been in the mix in the first part of the race before its chances were ruined by a drive-through penalty for pitlane speeding and then a further unscheduled stop to repair a number panel.

Manor's other car, the #45 of Alex Lynn, Tor Graves and Shinji Nakano, had a lengthy spell in the garage to fix a starter motor early on that removed it from contention.

Ford takes first regular WEC win

In the GTE-Pro class, the two Ford GTs were in a class of their own, as Harry Tincknell and Andy Priaulx secured the American marque its first WEC win since its famous Le Mans 24 Hours triumph.

The #67 pair swapped positions with the sister car of Olivier Pla and Stefan Mucke several times in the early running, but the battle was effectively ended when Pla suffered a spin at the end of the penultimate hour.

Third place went to the #51 Ferrari of James Calado and Gianmaria Bruni, with the #71 AF Corse-run machine of Sam Bird and Davide Rigon taking fourth ahead of the two Aston Martins.

While the British manufacturer couldn't keep up with its GTE-Pro class rivals, its #98 car was unstoppable in the GTE-Am division, as Pedro Lamy, Mathias Lauda and Paul Dalla Lana sauntered to victory by a lap over the #83 AF Corse Ferrari of Rui Aguas, Francois Perrodo and Emmanuel Collard.

Cla	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Time/Gap
1	6	Stéphane Sarrazin   Kamui Kobayashi   Mike Conway	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	244	6:00'37.284
2	8	Lucas di Grassi   Loic Duval   Oliver Jarvis	Audi R18	LMP1	244	1.439
3	1	Mark Webber   Timo Bernhard   Brendon Hartley	Porsche 919 Hybrid	LMP1	244	17.339
4	5	Anthony Davidson   Kazuki Nakajima   Sébastien Buemi	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	244	53.779
5	2	Romain Dumas   Neel Jani   Marc Lieb	Porsche 919 Hybrid	LMP1	243	1 lap
6	13	Alexandre Imperatori   Dominik Kraihamer   Matheo Tuscher	Rebellion R-One	LMP1	229	15 laps
7	26	Will Stevens   Roman Rusinov   Alex Brundle	Oreca 05	LMP2	223	21 laps
8	43	Bruno Senna   Ricardo Gonzalez   Filipe Albuquerque	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	223	21 laps
9	36	Nicolas Lapierre   Gustavo Menezes   Stéphane Richelmi	Alpine A460	LMP2	223	21 laps
10	30	Giedo van der Garde   Sean Gelael   Antonio Giovinazzi	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	223	21 laps
11	31	Pipo Derani   Ryan Dalziel   Chris Cumming	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	222	22 laps
12	42	Jonny Kane   Lewis Williamson	Gibson 015S	LMP2	222	22 laps
13	44	Roberto Merhi   Richard Bradley   Matthew Rao	Oreca 05	LMP2	222	22 laps
14	27	Maurizio Mediani   Nicolas Minassian   Mikhail Aleshin	BR01	LMP2	222	22 laps
15	35	Paul-Loup Chatin   Ho-Pin Tung   David Cheng	Alpine A460	LMP2	221	23 laps
16	37	Vitaly Petrov   Viktor Shaytar   Kirill Ladygin	BR01	LMP2	220	24 laps
17	67	Harry Tincknell   Andy Priaulx	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	212	32 laps
18	66	Stefan Mücke   Olivier Pla	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	212	32 laps
19	51	Gianmaria Bruni   James Calado	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE PRO	212	32 laps
20	71	Sam Bird   Davide Rigon	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE PRO	212	32 laps
21	95	Marco Sorensen   Nicki Thiim	Aston Martin Vantage V8	LMGTE PRO	211	33 laps
22	97	Darren Turner   Richie Stanaway	Aston Martin Vantage V8	LMGTE PRO	211	33 laps
23	77	Richard Lietz   Michael Christensen	Porsche 911 RSR (2016)	LMGTE PRO	210	34 laps
24	98	Pedro Lamy   Paul Dalla Lana   Mathias Lauda	Aston Martin Vantage V8	LMGTE AM	208	36 laps
25	83	François Perrodo   Emmanuel Collard   Rui Aguas	Ferrari F458 Italia	LMGTE AM	207	37 laps
26	78	Christian Ried   Wolf Henzler   Joel Camathias	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	206	38 laps
27	86	Michael Wainwright   Adam Carroll   Ben Barker	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	205	39 laps
28	88	David Heinemeier Hansson   Patrick Long   Khaled Al Qubaisi	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	200	44 laps
29	45	Shinji Nakano   Tor Graves   Alex Lynn	Oreca 05	LMP2	190	54 laps
30	50	Pierre Ragues   Ricky Taylor   Yutaka Yamagishi	Chevrolet Corvette C7-Z06	LMGTE AM	172	72 laps
Ret	4	Simon Trummer   Oliver Webb   Pierre Kaffer	CLM P1/01	LMP1	79	165 laps
Ret	7	Andre Lotterer   Marcel Fassler   Benoit Tréluyer	Audi R18	LMP1	36	208 laps