McQueen to McCarthy: Le Mans on the silver screen.

The field at this year's Le Mans 24 Hours is two cars larger than usual, but not because the Automobile Club de l'Ouest felt sorry for the many teams that wanted to enter.

Instead, the ACO has reacted positively to the desire of one of Hollywood's outsiders, the French director Luc Besson, who has long dreamed of bringing his childhood hero to the big screen.

As a result, the grid and pit-lane at the famed La Sarthe circuit have been increased to accommodate a round 50 entries, rather than the usual 48, as the DAMS team operates the two cars destined to form the centrepiece of another cinematic motorsport battle.

Of course, Le Mans is no stranger to the silver screen following Steve McQueen's 1971 attempt to convey the drama, danger and excitement of the great race to the movie-going public at large.

Rated by many as the last decent motorsport film - it followed John Frankenheimer's Grand Prix but preceded the likes of Days of Thunder and Driven - Le Mans depicts the battle between McQueen's character Michael Delaney, his German rival Erich Stahler and the demons that plague the American hero as he romances the widow of a fellow driver in whose death he may have had a role.

While James Dean and, later, Tom Cruise, may have had their moments behind the wheel - on film and off - McQueen is thought of as one of cinema's true racers, and was ideally cast as the champion driver. His love of motorsport led him to race both cars and motorcycles when he wasn't filming - he even considered taking up the sport full-time - and his passion for racing and fast machines was reflected in some of the greatest moments in cinema history.

He was also regarded as something of a maverick, and it was true of his nature that the 24 Hours was the focus of the film of the same name. Why else would there be no script and no female lead even after months of shooting? McQueen's race experience, and his desire to accurately portray the racing world worked as beautifully as the Ferrari 512LM and Gulf Team Porsche 917 that appeared on screen.

Thirty-one years on and fiction again returns to mix with fact at the French marathon. While McQueen's movie used footage from the race, Besson has gone one step further and actually managed to get two entries accepted for the event itself. A partnership agreement was reached between Michel Cosson, president of the ACO, Pierre-Ange Le Pogam, the producer of the screen adaptation, and the CEO of Europa Corp, the movie studio founded by Besson, to enable a Lola and Panoz, bearing the colours of the Vaillant and Leader teams respectively, to race in the 70th running of the event.

Respected race team DAMS, formerly charged with running the Cadillac Northstar entry, will oversee the two radically different machines - chosen for the ability to represent 'good' and 'evil' - and will spare nothing in their efforts to combine the needs of the filmmakers with the natural instinct to go for glory.

While little is known about the film itself, its plot, characters or cast, there will be nothing 'make-believe' about those charged with carrying out the racing scenes. Although the two cars have had to be tested with an extra 20kg of camera mounted in various positions - and will be raced in similar conditions - the three drivers and 15 crew per machine will be treating this weekend as another race.

The pit-lane is not a place for actors - unless you happen to be Paul Newman, perhaps - and, consequently, all the necessary racing scenes will be filmed using professionals, all of whom have tackled the 24 Hours before. Michel Neugarten, Philippe Gache, and Emmanuel Clerico will drive the blue Vaillante, while Perry McCarthy, Marc Duez, and Jerome Policand pilot the red 'enemy' Leader. The week will be used to wrap general scenes, with onboard footage at a premium in race conditions, but the specialist 'battle' scenes will not be filmed until a month after the race, as the film crew respects the safety of those competing 'for real'.

'' We're here, first and foremost, for the movie," Policand told the 24 Hours' official website, "After that, of course, there is the race. But it is clear that we have nothing at stake in the race. The only goal we have set is to go as far as possible in order to film a maximum of sequences. And although we won't be racing, we will be travelling at high speed, driving at 330 km/h is still a professional's job!''

While you can be sure that the competitive instincts of team and drivers will not be dimmed by the thought of production values, their ambitions of winning the event outright - in reality at least - may be affected by them. Film does not last forever and angles, light and even bodywork all have to be altered - word has it each car will actually represent a pair in the finished film - so the teams may find themselves making more pit-stops than is ideal for victory.

''This time, the goal is not to cross the finish line first ,'' Clerico admitted, "It's a real job this year - we have a lot of instructions!"

If the drivers will be frustrated, the watching public will be even more so, as it will appear that just man is doing all the driving. For those fans who like to be able to identify their heroes by the colour of their crash helmets, this weekend will be something of a irritation as each of the two crews will sport identical liveries. Instead of Neugarten, Clerico and Gache, read Vaillant, Wood and Cavalo; and for McCarthy, Policand and Duez, try Borman, Hawkins and Barker. (Who is designated to replicate the delightful Julie Wood remains to be seen, meanwhile...)

So, who is Michel Vaillant?

Little known outside of mainland Europe, the perennial 30-something spurred many a young Prost, Schumacher and Ickx to climb behind the wheel. Created by Breton cartoonist Jean Graton, Vaillant first appeared in the TinTin comic in 1957, before going on to establish himself as a favourite of strips, books and animated cartoons in his own right. Refusing to bow to the usual stereotypical comic book hero as soldier, detective, astronaut or policeman, Graton simply indulged his love of drawing cars and made his chief character a racer.

A Euro version of Britain's Skid Solo, Vaillant has competed in anything and everything, with only a handful of his 60 'albums' being about anything but racing-related adventures. Formula One, rallying and stock cars have all fallen before him, while he continues to return to the event that spawned it all - Le Mans.

Prototype endurance racing appears in ten of the Vaillant books, and also in the first series of comic strips in '57. Graton's love of the 24 Hours is highlighted in his attention to detail - from the tensed muscles at the old-fashioned running start waiting for the tannoy to signal the off, via the dancing headlights and mist in early morning, to the valiant stragglers at the chequered flag - in every tale.

If Besson, DAMS, McCarthy et al can reproduce that, we may have a worthy successor to the original Le Mans.