The best and biggest battle will be at the back of Le Mans

The 1999 edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours is often looked back upon as a classic year for manufacturer participation. Twenty years on, it's a very similar story - but the difference is that it's not for outright honours.

Just as the World Endurance Championship's LMP1 golden age was coming to an end, a new one was starting in the GTE Pro class. The arrival of the Ford GT in 2016, combined with the entry of the Ferrari 488 GTE, created an unprecedented amount of interest in the third tier at the Circuit de la Sarthe. Since then, the category has only blossomed further.

Porsche came back with a new mid-engined 911 RSR in 2017, and then doubled its GTE Pro presence to four cars the following year. BMW also joined the party with a pair of new M8 GTEs, creating an almighty 17-car scrap in '18 with no fewer than six manufacturers represented. The same number of cars will duke it out this time around in one the best class fields ever assembled at Le Mans. But with Ford already having confirmed the end of its works GT programme, and BMW also bailing after just 18 months in the WEC - although it will continue in the IMSA SportsCar Championship - will '19 be looked back upon as GTE's zenith?

"It certainly seems it's at a high-water mark at the moment," reckons Corvette Racing's Oliver Gavin. "We know Ford is stopping and BMW is pulling out of the WEC, which I think is a great shame, because I think the competition and the battles you have in GTE Pro are phenomenal.

"You look at the line-ups and the manufacturers that are there, and it's hard to find a weak link. Everyone will argue their class is the hardest class, or the most competitive, but GTE Pro is nudging the bar very high and I think you'll struggle to find closer competition in any [class] Le Mans."

Last year's race didn't live up to expectations - what looked set to be a race-long battle between Ford and Porsche fizzled out early on when an ill-timed safety car essentially gave the #92 911 RSR shared by Laurens Vanthoor, Kevin Estre and Michael Christensen a two-minute lead.

Estre and Christensen, again joined by Porsche IMSA SportsCar regular Vanthoor for 2019, don't just have a race win to defend this time around - there's the small matter of the WEC GTE drivers' title for them to consider as the 14-month 2018-19 superseason finally reaches its climax.

With 36 points in hand over team-mates Gianmaria Bruni and Richard Lietz, Estre and Christensen just need to score four points to be certain of title honours, equivalent to eighth place, or ninth place with the bonus point for pole.

"It will be tough for sure - it's the race you want to win, but we are playing for the championship there," says Estre.

"We are in a very good position to win the championship, but we haven't won it yet - and at Le Mans you can lose in the last hour. We have to stay focused - it will be a tough race mentally. We'll see, but we definitely have an eye on both winning the championship and Le Mans."

Disregarding the title, Porsche would have to be considered the favourite to defend its 2018 Le Mans crown by dint of its strong recent form in the WEC and in IMSA. Like last year, it has a numerical advantage too, with the two CORE Autosport-run cars that race in the US again reinforcing the pair of Manthey WEC entries.

With the WEC facing such an uncertain future right now, perhaps in 20 years' time fans of sportscar racing will look back upon the 2019 event as fondly as many think of 1999 today

But Le Mans has a funny habit of sharing honours round: the last time a manufacturer took successive GT1 or GTE Pro victories was Aston Martin back in 2007-08. And that was when there were only two realistic contenders for victory, rather than the six there are now.

Aston had a Le Mans week to forget last year, its all-new Vantage GTE proved to be five seconds per lap off the pace, due in part to what the British marque believed to be an overly conservative Balance of Performance for the new cars - which also included the BMW and Ferrari's upgraded 488 'evo'. With two WEC class wins now under its belt at Shanghai and Spa (both achieved in wet conditions) and an awful lot of test and development work completed since last June, Aston should be somewhere in the ballpark this time around.

"Certainly we'll gain power in the BoP over last year, which we 100% need," says Alex Lynn, who arrives at Le Mans with the momentum of winning at Spa with Maxime Martin.

"The car has gained efficiency, downforce, less drag, as the development's gone on. We've seen a 2.5-second improvement at Spa on pure lap time. If we can equate that to Le Mans [which is roughly twice as long as Spa], we should be somewhere near. What we have now is a really great race car and we can be very hopeful going to Le Mans."

The other manufacturer that will be crossing its fingers for a more favourable BoP this year is Ferrari, which has a two-car AF Corse assault for 2019, supported by a 488 entered by long-time IMSA competitor Risi Competizione.

James Calado was very vocal about his unhappiness with the BoP last year, saying Ferrari had been penalised for not trying to hide its performance. And after a fairly gruelling WEC campaign for the Prancing Horse, which has won only one race all season, Calado is crossing his fingers for enough grunt down the Mulsanne Straight to allow the 488's prowess in the corners to do the rest.

"We're hoping the BoP is not going to be as bad as last year," says Calado. "We hope we get something for the poor performance last year. You never know, but I think we're confident we can do well. We don't know what the others are hiding or not hiding. The Fords and BMWs are stonkingly quick - I don't know if they've any more to give; maybe that's their maximum. All we need is straightline speed, to at least get us within 5km/h of the fastest car so we can hang on."

Straightline speed is a problem Ford has rarely struggled with, although over the course of the WEC season its drivers have complained about a lack of low-end acceleration - a function of the rulemakers trying to balance the sleek, slippery GT with its more conventionally shaped rivals.

Whether this marks the final hurrah for the GT remains to be seen, with Ford still weighing up giving its blessing to some sort of semi-works programme going forward. But running four cars for the fourth year in succession gives the Ganassi-run operation the best shot possible of bowing out on a high.

BMW is sticking with just two cars again and, like Aston's new Vantage, the M8 is going into its second Le Mans. But, unlike Aston, it wasn't so much raw speed that let down the Bavarian marque last year as fragility: only one M8 finished, 12 laps down after myriad mechanical dramas.

Ernest Knoors, boss of the MTEK operation that runs the M8s in the WEC, says that a year of racing has allowed BMW to toughen up its challenger, adding: "As long as we keep a reasonable balance in the BoP we should be able to compete."

By contrast, the Corvette C7.R, which made its debut in 2014, is the oldest car in the field. And while the team itself refuses to say so, the C7's sixth outing at Le Mans could well be its last before it is replaced by a race version of the upcoming mid-engined C8 Corvette.

There's also the added incentive of this being Corvette's 20th successive year in the GT ranks at Le Mans, a milestone the American brand would love to mark with a ninth victory. And now IMSA uses the same Michelin tyre as WEC, it faces a more level playing field than it has done in recent years.

Gavin, part of the winning Corvette crew in 2015, adds: "If it's a relatively dry and warm week, that tends to be good for us. If it's changeable conditions and the track is not really rubbered in that well, we might have a harder time, looking at our car compared to some of the newer cars. They are generating more downforce than us; they've got some advantages over us in terms of weight distribution, efficiency, but that's only natural considering our C7 is five years old.

"We're coming into it confident, with a settled driver line-up and crew; we know how to win the race. But Le Mans has an amazing way of throwing in surprises. We're all expecting some of that."

After last year's dud, hopefully this year all the ingredients will translate into a barnstorming GTE Pro race. And, with the WEC itself facing such an uncertain future right now, perhaps in 20 years' time fans of sportscar racing will look back upon the 2019 event as fondly as many think of 1999 today.