The most thrilling comebacks in Le Mans history - and the British hypercar gunning for glory

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At 4pm local time today, 62 cars will cross the start-line of the Circuit de la Sarthe, outside the French city of Le Mans, for the 93rd running of the most famous endurance race in the world.

If Formula One is a series of high-speed sprints between 20 near-identical cars, the 24 Hours of Le Mans is motorsport's answer to the ultra-marathon, with a broader spread of machinery. An intense and relentless day and night of high-octane entertainment that pushes cars and competitors to breaking point. Covering more miles in a single race than some F1 cars will do in a whole season, Le Mans has been likened to a 24-hour war.

Despite this attrition, the race that dates back to 1923 has a way of enticing some of the world's greatest car manufacturers back year on year in the hope they'll take the title as the most consistent, reliable and fastest team in endurance racing. It's an irresistible challenge that's seen some of the most prestigious marques come, go and then come back for more.

British challenge

For this year's event, all eyes are on Aston Martin as the great British marque returns to Le Mans in the top-flight Hypercar category, in search of its first outright victory in 66 years, when Roy Salvadori and Carroll Shelby drove a DBR1 to victory in 1959. Helping it do that will be a brace of Valkyrie AMR-LMHs, a Le Mans-ready version of the £2.5 million Valkyrie road car from the pen of Adrian Newey, perhaps the finest racing car designer of the past 30 years.

"It would be almost unimaginable for Adrian Newey to design a car and not think about it going racing at some point," says Adam Carter, Aston Martin's head of endurance motorsport. "With an extraordinary fusion of F1 technology and road car mastery, the Valkyrie is truly built for racing."

Going up against seasoned veterans Porsche, Ferrari, Toyota, BMW, Alpine, Peugeot and Cadillac, Aston Martin's return to Le Mans will be hailed as one of the greatest comebacks of all time - if it goes to plan.

Ahead of its big moment at the French endurance classic, here's a look back at the marques which defied the odds to make miraculous comebacks at the world's greatest endurance race.