A Porsche 919 Hybrid of Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Mark Webber qualified in pole position by setting the fastest lap in class.

They led for the opening 80 minutes until they suffered a terminal rear drivetrain failure, promoting their teammates Marc Lieb, Neel Jani and Romain Dumas to first position.

7 tean took a 10-second stop-and-go penalty for a track limits transgression in the final 14 minutes, they finished first to achieve Lotterer, Fässler and Tréluyer's ninth overall career victory in a record-breaking distance of 201 laps.

Lieb, Dumas and Jani finished second and a Toyota TS040 Hybrid driven by Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Anthony Davidson was third.

The Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) category was won by the G-Drive Racing Ligier JS P2 car shared by Roman Rusinov, Julien Canal and Sam Bird, which took the lead from the fast-starting KCMG Oreca 05 of Nick Tandy, Matthew Howson and Richard Bradley on lap six and held it for most of the race to win by one-lap over the sister crew of Gustavo Yacamán, Ricardo González and Pipo Derani which started from pole position.

The AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia GTE of Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander passed their teammates James Calado and Davide Rigon following a battle during the race's fourth houro win the Le Mans Grand Touring Professional (LMGTE Pro) class.

The Le Mans Grand Touring Amateur (LMGTE Am) category was won by Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda in an Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GTE by 13.712 seconds over the AF Corse Ferrari team of Rui Águas, Emmanuel Collard and François Perrodo.

The final results gave Lotterer, Fässler and Tréluyer an early Drivers' Championship lead with 25 points, seven ahead of Lieb, Jani and Dumas and a further three in front of Buemi, Nakajima and Davidson.

[4] After the retirement of nine-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen, Audi internally promoted Oliver Jarvis to the squad.

[5] ByKolles's Simon Trummer was stranded in Switzerland due to a French air traffic control strike, and Christian Klien was contacted on the day of the first practice session to take his place.

[2] Defending LMP2 champions SMP Racing and driver Sergey Zlobin opted not to return, instead focusing on the European Le Mans Series (ELMS) to develop their new BR01 chassis.

[7] 2013 class champions OAK Racing returned to the World Endurance Championship (WEC) under their own banner for team owner and driver Jacques Nicolet.

[1] Extreme Speed Motorsports (ESM) was the series' sole North American-representative, moving from the United SportsCar Championship to the WEC, with their two HPD ARX-03bs after a pre-season testing issue forced them to discard the newer 04 chassis.

[12] One of their drivers Johannes van Overbeek injured his rib due to a coughing fit the week before and was replaced by 2009 Le Mans co-winner David Brabham.

[13][14] The Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Professional (LMGTE Pro) field consisted of three manufacturers (Aston Martin, Ferrari and Porsche), while Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Amateur (LMGTE Am) included six teams: Aston Martin Racing, AF Corse, Larbre Compétition, Dempsey-Racing Proton, Porsche Team Manthley, and SMP Racing.

[2] Three-time LMGTE champions AF Corse's Ferraris had a near identical line-up, and Porsche Team Manthey also kept the drivers for its two cars largely unchanged.

[2] Aston Martin Racing expanded their effort to three cars for 2015 after partner Young Driver's entry, which won the LMGTE Am category in 2014, moved to the Pro class.

10 kg (22 lb) of ballast was added to the LMGTE Pro class Ferrari 458 Italia and the Aston Martin V8 Vantage to reduce their handling abilities.

[43] When the race began before a crowd of 45,000 spectators at 12:00 British Summer Time (UTC+01:00),[44][45] Webber retained the lead into the first corner as his teammate Dumas came under attack from di Grassi into Aintree turn.

Overtakes occurred in LMGTE Pro as Porsche teammates Lietz and Patrick Pilet got by Stanaway, and Bruni moved past the latter at Stowe corner.

This caused the trio of LMGTE Pro Aston Martins to lose time making their pit stops between the green flag and the full course yellow.

[48][50][53] As the second round of pit stops for fuel and driver changes began, Tréluyer drew closer to Lieb, who was momentarily delayed by Danny Watts' No.

42 Strakka Racing Dome, and Tréluyer moved into the lead on the outside into Becketts turn before Lieb retook it due to his car's higher straight-line speed on the Wellington Straight into Stowe corner.

Conway mounted the kerb in avoidance, hitting a thin plastic bollard that lodged itself in the front of the Toyota's splitter affecting its turn-in handing.

[48][62] However, Fässler maintained the overall lead and crossed the start/finish line in a new race distance record of 201 laps to win by 4.610 seconds for his, Lotterer and Tréluyer's ninth outright career victory.

[54][55][62] Jack Philipps of Motor Sport wrote that it was like "Mini Cooper against Ford Falcon", and called it, "Utterly scintillating and, when the second Audi joined the battle to unlap itself, even more spectacular".

[54] The Guardian's Giles Richards commented that the momentum Audi were anxious to maintain would be tested at Spa and the 24 Hours of Le Mans since the gap between the three manufacturers was marginal.

"Audi have once again made their point that you underestimate them at your peril, but the team who use the hashtag #welcomechallenges have found their offer accepted with a powerful and determined threat this year and one that bodes well for a cracking season.

"[55] Writing for NBC Sports, Luke Smith said, "At the start of what looks poised to be the WEC's biggest season to date, Silverstone played host to an incredible feast of racing on Sunday as the LMP1 titans all laid claim to their title bid.

"[62] David Hobbs of AOL considered Lotterer to be Audi's best driver at Silverstone as he was instrumental in helping the team take what the journalist called "a famous victory".