Part 2: Still the Greatest Racing Movie Ever Made?

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]Last year I produced one of the most successful videos on this channel revisiting and reviewing what is arguably the greatest racing film of all time, John Frankenheimer's Grand Prix.

[00:00:10]One of the most memorable things about me making this video was reading your comments, specifically the stories about when and where you first saw the film and just how unbelievable the experience felt at the time. For a lot of you, Grand Prix was even a catalyst that made you an F1 fan and that was fascinating to me because it gave me something I normally don't get when covering auto motive history, perspective from people who actually lived through it. But while reading through those comments, I kind of started to notice another pattern.

[00:00:37]While the title of the video asked whether Grand Prix was still the greatest racing film ever made, some of you answered and named an alternative title. That title is Le Mans. So I watched it.

[00:01:08]Though similar, it was a completely different experience. Where a Grand Prix is narrative driven with a very familiar hero and vixen structure, Le Mans is minimal dialogue and practically pure atmosphere. So perhaps this is actually the greatest racing film of all time.

[00:01:26]Let's talk about it.

[00:01:37]While Hollywood generally viewed motorsport as a spectacle, Steve McQueen was deeply embedded in racing culture long before he ever attempted to bring it to the screen. McQueen wasn't just another Hollywood actor pretending to be an auto enthusiast. By the 1960s, racing had already become a major part of his identity. Away from film sets, he was actively competing in serious motorsports events. Over the decade, he participated in events including the British Touring Car Championship, the Mint 1000, and the International Six Days Trial. And honestly, the Six Days Trial was something I barely knew anything about until researching this video. I had an all new respect for McQueen as he practically competed in one of the most grueling and Spartan race series at the time, apparently. So, being accredited as an actual motorsport professional and actor, it's safe to say he wasn't entirely satisfied with the way that Hollywood portrayed racing.

[00:02:27]McQueen wanted it done right, and he was hard set on doing it himself. Not simply a movie about racing, but what he believed could become the first truly authentic Formula 1 film. Part of that vision was inspired by the cruel sports, a novel by Robert Daley, which was a behind-the-scenes look at the danger and psychology of Formula 1 during the 1960s.

[00:02:48]>> [music] >> Rather than glorifying racing as pure spectacle, the book emphasized the constant risk, brutality, and emotional isolation [music] that defined the sport during the era. You may recall in my original Grand Prix documentary that I referred to the 1960s F1 drivers as practically gladiators of that time. To bring this gritty project to life, McQueen intended to reunite with director John Sturges, fresh off the enormous success of 1963 film The Great Escape. You may have heard of it.

[00:03:17]Together, the two began developing what would eventually become an early racing film project known as Day of the Champion. The production would be in partnership with Warner Brothers, but before McQueen could bring his vision to the screen, Hollywood beat [music] him to it.

[00:03:32]As reported in a documentary called The Lost Movie, at a dinner event, fellow director John Frankenheimer would be seated next to Sturges and told him how he and MGM were about to announce a new film also about Formula 1. From that point on, it was an arms race between the two studios, MGM and Warner Brothers. But to make matters worse, a representative of Robert Daley, the author of Cruel Sport, shook hands with Sturges over the rights to the book. But then it turned out that Daley ultimately worked a deal with MGM despite their original agreement. Day of the Champion, McQueen's film, was slated for production in 1965 with huge names playing advisor roles including Jim Clark and Stirling Moss. But ultimately, >> [music] >> Warner would cancel the film for various reasons. This was largely due to insurance companies and backers being terrified of letting their biggest star race cars at extreme speeds. And for good reason, McQueen was notorious for doing dangerous stunts himself, ignoring studio safety standards while pushing productions to the limits. [music] Insurance companies reportedly became a major obstacle because the risk calculations were just insane. If you saw my original video on Grand Prix, you may remember that Frankenheimer and James Garner ran into the same obstacles, but they ended up circumventing some of those issues.

[00:04:52]Garner would even be uninsured during the majority of the production of Grand Prix. But for the Day of the Champion, there were also production delays.

[00:05:00]McQueen was shooting a film called The Sand Pebbles in Taiwan and Hong Kong, running significantly over schedule and over budget. The grueling 6-month overseas shoot left him exhausted.

[00:05:11]Ultimately, this allowed Frankenheimer's rival film, Grand Prix, to beat them to production. Officially, Warner Bros.

[00:05:18]canceled McQueen's project in 1966.

[00:05:21]It stated that some filming was completed at the 1965 German Grand Prix, but the project was officially abandoned. However, this would actually be the true origin story of Le Mans.

[00:05:38]Following the success of Grand Prix, Hollywood suddenly realized that racing films could be commercially viable. The movie had stunned audiences with its revolutionary in-car camera work, massive racing sequences, and unprecedented access to the world of Formula 1. For many viewers, they had never seen speed portrayed so convincingly on screen before. But while the industry celebrated the Grand Prix as a breakthrough, Steve McQueen was already thinking beyond it. His desire to create the ultimate racing film had never gone away, and he recognized exactly what Grand Prix had proven.

[00:06:11]There was an actual appetite for motorsport cinema. McQueen had also realized despite his technical achievements, Grand Prix was still fundamentally Hollywood. Beneath the racing footage were familiar cliché drama elements, romance, [music] rivalries, conflict, overall conventional storytelling. McQueen wanted something different. [music] He wanted to create a film even more immersive than Grand Prix while prioritizing the sensation of being in the race itself. Also, for some of you that may have shared the same curious thought as I did, I found no record that he actually intended [music] to compete with Grand Prix or Frankenheimer, but it is apparent he was trying to push beyond what Grand Prix had achieved. And by the end of the 1960s, he finally had the power to do it. You see, early in the '60s, McQueen had set up his own company, Solar Productions, which would then go on to produce the 1968 film Bullitt.

[00:07:08]Thanks to the enormous success of Bullitt, McQueen had become one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. His influence within the industry was now so significant that he could effectively green-light his own passion projects. If he wanted to make the greatest racing film ever produced, studios were willing to listen. So, in 1969, early production teams traveled to the 24 Hours of Le Mans to begin experimenting with filming techniques [music] and camera setups. The trip was essentially a large-scale test session and an opportunity to discover what worked, what failed, and how they could capture endurance racing in a way no film ever had before. Those early experiments would become the foundation for everything that followed. Armed with real race footage, new technical knowledge, and McQueen's [music] relentless ambition, the production would return to Le Mans in 1970 with a full film crew determined to create the most authentic racing movie ever attempted, Le Mans.

[00:08:06]Lee Katzin would replace original director John Sturges, and Solar Productions would again partner with Warner Brothers for distribution.

[00:08:14]Leading technical drivers would include Derek Bell, Jackie Ickx, and David Piper. The hero car to be driven by McQueen's character was a 917K donning the iconic Gulf livery. Most of the 917 footage seen in the film came from the real John Wyer Automotive Porsches.

[00:08:31]Something I found remarkable is that the team would also use a Porsche 908 as a dedicated camera car. The camera car had to officially enter into the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans and qualify. It was transformed into a high-speed camera platform fitted with three mounted film cameras designed to capture racing footage directly inside the event itself. The idea was unprecedented.

[00:08:55]Rather than simulate Le Mans on a closed set, the filmmakers wanted their cameras embedded among the real competitors surrounded by actual race traffic at over 200 mph. So, despite carrying heavy camera equipment, the Porsche 908 needed to meet the same standards as every other competitor on the grid. That meant the drivers weren't simply filming, they were genuinely racing. This created enormous technical and logistical challenges for the production team.

[00:09:21]Camera equipment in 1970 was bulky, fragile, and never designed to withstand the vibration, heat, and sustained speeds of endurance racing. Keeping the cameras functioning for long periods while maintaining competitive pace became an engineering challenge on its own. The production crew would also be recognized for its pioneering use of full-size radio-controlled cars for stunt sequences. But, groundbreaking ingenuity aside, that pursuit of authenticity would soon create serious tensions behind the scenes. The production lacked a finalized script.

[00:09:53]Scenes were constantly being rewritten, and creative disagreements began emerging between Steve McQueen, the directors, and the studio. McQueen remained determined to prioritize realism above everything else, while others on the production were worried the film was losing structure entirely.

[00:10:09]Despite the high production value and partnership, the film's production was plagued with issues. British racing driver David Piper lost part of his right leg following a severe crash while filming, and this became one of the defining tragedies of the production. In addition, the high cost and a $5 million insurance policy on McQueen eventually would lead to financial trouble for Solar Productions. And yet, despite the chaos, the production accomplished things no racing film had ever attempted before.

[00:10:46]The footage captured during filming was unlike anything audiences had seen before. In my honest opinion, Le Mans hit some marks that Grand Prix missed.

[00:10:55]They used N-class cars competing at race pace, and cameras mounted directly inside active race traffic. Whereas in Grand Prix, we saw Formula 2 and Formula 3 cars dressed as F1 driven by actors.

[00:11:09]In my opinion, the most remarkable thing about the Le Mans story is that the 908 camera car actually finished top 10 in the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans. While the 908 crossed the finish line in ninth place on the road, it was officially listed as not classified. However, the camera car actually completed 282 laps, the same number as the seventh-place finisher, proving its incredible reliability despite the grueling filming schedule. Overall, rather than relying on traditional Hollywood editing tricks, Le Mans often allowed scenes to breathe, emphasizing mechanical sounds and atmosphere over dialogue.

[00:11:56]In many ways, the film behaved less like a conventional drama and more like a cinematic time capsule of 1970s endurance racing. By the time the production wrapped up, hundreds of hours and miles of racing footage had been collected. Editors were tasked with shaping the material into something coherent while balancing McQueen's minimalist vision against the studio's demands for a more traditional narrative.

[00:12:19]>> And I don't know how we ever made it work. We had script writers coming in every week with a new [music] script.

[00:12:23]>> We had a million feet of film of racing footage. And we would sit in the editing room saying, [music] "Well, maybe we could make a sequence out of this."

[00:12:35]>> And when Le Mans finally released in 1971, reactions were mixed. Many critics and moviegoers struggled with this unconventional pacing, minimal dialogue, and near-documentary approach to storytelling. Compared to the dramatic structure of Grand Prix, the film felt cold and unusually restrained in a sense. Commercially, it failed to become the mainstream success McQueen and the studio had hoped for, but over time, something remarkable happened. The very qualities that confused audiences in 1971 gradually became the reason enthusiasts fell in love with the film decades later. Today, Le Mans is widely regarded as one of the most authentic depictions of motorsports ever captured on film, not because it dramatized racing, but because it immersed viewers inside it.

[00:13:23]In the end, Grand Grand have perfected the Hollywood racing movie, but Le Mans did achieve something entirely different. It captured the feeling of endurance racing itself. I found Grand Prix to be more engaging [music] and even tense at moments. For example, the audience is immediately thrown into the start of the Monaco Grand Prix during the opening credits, while Le Mans has a slow methodical burn leading up to the race start. Also felt like in Grand Prix, there was a sense of suspense building up from race to race, [music] especially before the Belgian Grand Prix and of course the final race at Monza.

[00:13:58]But what say you? Is Grand Prix the greatest racing film of all time or is it Le Mans? Grand Prix was the pioneer, but was Le Mans the evolution? Which has stood the test of time the best? Share your thoughts in the comments and again, thank you for watching.