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The 80th 24 Hours of Le Mans (French: 80e 24 Heures du Mans) was a 24-hour automobile endurance race for teams of three drivers each entering Le Mans Prototype and Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance cars held from 16 to 17 June 2012 at the Circuit de la Sarthe close to Le Mans, France before 240,000 spectators. It was the 80th running of the event, as organised by the automotive group, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) since 1923. The race was the third round of the 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship, with 30 of the race's 56 entries contesting the championship. A test day was held two weeks prior to the race on 3 June.
A Audi R18 e-tron quattro driven by André Lotterer, Marcel Fässler and Benoît Tréluyer started from pole position after Lotterer set the fastest overall lap time in the third qualifying session. The team were untroubled in the opening hours of the race until a Toyota TS030 Hybrid shared by Alexander Wurz, Kazuki Nakajima and Nicolas Lapierre took the lead. Toyota relinquished it during a safety car period for a major accident at the start of the sixth hour. Audi's other team of Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen and Rinaldo Capello became their teammate's lead challengers until McNish crashed while lapping slower traffic in the 22nd hour and providing Lotterer, Fässler and Tréluyer with a lead they maintained to the end of the race. It was Lotterer, Fässler and Tréluyer's second Le Mans win, Audi's eleventh and the first for a hybrid electric vehicle. The second Audi finished one lap behind in second place and a R18 ultra of Oliver Jarvis, Marco Bonanomi and Mike Rockenfeller completed an Audi sweep of the podium positions in third.
The Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class was won by the Starworks Motorsport team of Enzo Potolicchio, Ryan Dalziel and Tom Kimber-Smith in a HPD ARX-03b after they led the final 215 laps of the event. The trio finished ahead of Thiriet by TDS Racing's Oreca 03 car shared by Pierre Thiriet, Mathias Beche and Christophe Tinseau and PeCom Racing's Luís Pérez Companc, Pierre Kaffer and Soheil Ayari. Giancarlo Fisichella, Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander in an AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia GT2 held a three-lap lead in Le Mans Grand Touring Professional (LMGTE Pro) over Luxury Racing's trio of Frédéric Makowiecki, Jaime Melo and Dominik Farnbacher. The Le Mans Grand Touring Amateur (LMGTE Am) category was won by Larbre Compétition's Chevrolet Corvette C6.R of Patrick Bornhauser, Pedro Lamy and Julien Canal after Lamy overtook Anthony Pons, Nicolas Armindo and Raymond Narac's IMSA Performance Matmut Porsche 997 GT3-RSR in the final hour.
Due to the result of the race, McNish, Kristensen and Capello were elevated to the lead of the Drivers' Championship, 6½ points over the race winners Lotterer, Fässler and Tréluyer in second position. The leaders entering the event, Romain Dumas and Loïc Duval fell to third. Marc Gené was in fourth place and the Rebellion trio of Nick Heidfeld, Neel Jani and Nico Prost completed the top five after finishing in fourth position. Audi continued to lead the non-scoring Toyota in the Manufacturers' Championship with five races left in the season.