Le Mans

The Circuit de la Sarthe is one of motor racing's great permanent theatres — a 13.6-kilometre loop that combines purpose-built racing sections with roads that are returned to public use for the other 51 weeks of the year. It has hosted the 24 Hours of Le Mans since 1923. It is also the location where Steve McQueen brought his cameras in 1970 and 1971, staging a production that could not have been recreated anywhere else.

The circuit's character — its long Mulsanne Straight, its Dunlop Bridge, its Esses, its mix of exposed farmland and enclosed forest — gives Le Mans the film much of its visual identity. These are not generic racing images. They are specific: a particular place, a particular light, a particular quality of atmosphere that no studio exterior could have provided.

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