The world-renowned “24 Heures du Mans” is a long-distance race for sports cars held annually ever since 1923 by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO) near the French town of Le Mans. The “Circuit de la Sarthe” track, named after the river Sarthe, is composed partly of public roads and currently measures slightly less than 14 kilometres in length. Spending almost 75% at full throttle and achieving maximum speeds in excess of 340 km/h, the fastest vehicles cover more than 5000 km during the 24 Hours. To this day, these key data represent precisely what the Le Mans 24 Hours was originally planned as: a long-distance race during which automotive manufacturers can put the reliability and development status of their vehicles to the test and prove their capabilities.

No wonder that Porsche has written its name into the annals of this race as a record participant and a record winner: Since 1951, there has always been at least one Porsche on the starting grid of the Le Mans 24 Hours. This means that a total of more than 600 Porsche vehicles have taken part in this race. With prototypes and GT vehicles, Porsche earns 16 overall victories and 97 class victories. The first victory came in 1951 in a 356 Alu Coupe, the last in 2009 with the RS Spyder.

In addition to the five 911 GT3 RSR vehicles of the Felbermayr-Proton, Flying Lizard and Endurance Asia teams, also two RS Spyders from the Essex and Goh teams drove the 2009 Le Mans 24 Hours.

The danish Team Essex, with drivers Casper Elgaard, Kristian Poulsen and Emmanuel Collard, not only repeated the class victory of the Van Merksteijn Team but also won the "Michelin Green X Challenge" environmental competition.