The centenary edition marked a watershed in the sport's regulatory framework. The Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Professional (LMGTE Pro) class was dropped entirely, leaving only the LMGTE Am category for GT cars. For the first time the top class was contested exclusively under the unified Le Mans Hypercar and Le Mans Daytona hybrid (LMDh) regulations, attracting Ferrari, Toyota, Porsche, Cadillac, Glickenhaus, Peugeot, and Vanwall in a field of unprecedented manufacturer diversity.
The ACO introduced a revised safety car procedure in which multiple safety cars were deployed but progressively withdrawn, allowing lapped traffic to cycle through and re-join the queue behind the final remaining safety car. Tyre warmers, normally banned for environmental reasons, were reinstated for the race at the drivers' request following crashes on cold tyres at the preceding Spa WEC round.
A pre-event balance of performance adjustment added ballast to the fastest Hypercar contenders. The Toyota GR010 Hybrid received the largest addition at 37 kg, Ferrari's 499P received 24 kg, Porsche's 963 received 11 kg, and the Cadillac V-Series.R received 3 kg.
The centenary race also featured Hendrick Motorsports' modified NASCAR Next Gen Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 in the Garage 56 experimental category, marking NASCAR's first Le Mans presence since 1976. The car was driven by Jenson Button, Jimmie Johnson, and Mike Rockenfeller and carried the number 24 in tribute to Jeff Gordon.
Ferrari took its first Le Mans pole position since 1973, ending Toyota's run of six consecutive poles. Antonio Fuoco set a Hypercar class record of 3:22.982 in the Hyperpole shootout despite being impeded by slower traffic at Indianapolis and Arnage corners. The sister No. 51 Ferrari of Pier Guidi qualified second. The Toyota GR010 Hybrids of Brendon Hartley and Kamui Kobayashi took third and fifth, split by Nasr's Porsche 963.
Rain between the warm-up and race start created mixed conditions. LeBron James waved the tricolor to start the race at 16:00 local time. The early hours were chaotic: two safety car periods and multiple accidents thinned the field substantially. Significant incidents included Jack Aitken beaching the Cadillac AXR car at the Mulsanne chicane, the Corvette Racing entry spending two laps in the garage repairing a faulty damper, and a multi-car collision at Dunlop Bridge in the second hour involving the Peugeot No. 3 of Sébastien Bourdais and an AF Corse Ferrari.
The No. 7 Toyota of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, and José María López was eliminated in the ninth hour when Prette's GTE Ferrari, avoiding a Glickenhaus that had been hit by a Proton Porsche, struck the Toyota's left rear wheel, while a separate Alpine car hit the right rear simultaneously. The crash left just one Toyota in the lead battle.
Through the night the race resolved into a duel between Buemi, Hartley, and Ryō Hirakawa in the No. 8 Toyota and Calado, Giovinazzi, and Pier Guidi in the No. 51 Ferrari. The Ferrari team exploited tyre strategy — refuelling only without changing tyres at key stops — to build a lead. Ferrari also benefited from the Toyota suffering a Kevlar fragment in its cooler following the No. 7 car's accident, causing engine overheating.
With 1 hour 45 minutes remaining, Hirakawa ran wide entering Arnage on an unintended rearward brake balance setting and spun into the barriers, requiring bodywork repairs that left the Toyota nearly a lap behind. Giovinazzi's No. 51 Ferrari then led the final 55 laps unchallenged. A cockpit communications failure at the final pit stop required a system reset, but Pier Guidi took the chequered flag, winning by 1 minute 21.793 seconds from Buemi's Toyota. Cadillac's Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn, and Richard Westbrook finished third, one lap back, despite managing an engine oil issue throughout the race.
In LMP2, Albert Costa, Fabio Scherer, and Jakub Smiechowski of Inter Europol Competition led the final 112 laps of the race despite radio communication issues in the closing stages, claiming their maiden WEC class victory. Scherer drove the closing hours with an incomplete fracture and ligament damage in his left foot after it was struck by another car at a pit stop. Team WRT finished second by 21.015 seconds with Rui Andrade, Louis Deletraz, and Robert Kubica.
In the final LMGTE Am race at Le Mans — the last ever GTE race at the circuit — Corvette Racing's Nicky Catsburg, Ben Keating, and Nicolas Varrone recovered from two laps down after a damper repair to win the class by one lap over the ORT by TF Aston Martin of Ahmad Al Harthy, Michael Dinan, and Charlie Eastwood. The Corvette's comeback was described by Keating as an "emotional rollercoaster."
Ferrari's victory was its tenth at Le Mans overall and ended a 58-year gap since their previous outright win. The centenary race was widely regarded as a landmark moment in endurance racing, combining historical significance with genuinely close competition across all classes. The retirement of the LMGTE Pro and LMGTE Am categories at Le Mans and the full emergence of the Hypercar era defined the 2023 race as a structural turning point for the sport. Forty of the 62 starters were classified at the finish, the lowest proportion since 2015.
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