Derek Bell recalls his unexpected friendship with Steve McQueen…

“I’d only just started in sports cars, so I was pretty green. I did it to earn money, not to rub shoulders with Steve. I didn’t think it would work out that way, but he just enjoyed spending time  with us, whenever he could. He wanted to be one of us, to be accepted as a driver, not as ‘Steve McQueen’. And of course we weren’t starstruck. Maybe I didn’t go to the movies much.

We thought he’d be on some other agenda, that he’d disappear and we wouldn’t see him for a week. But he was with us every time we’d turn a corner. We’d go off riding bikes together, or there would be me, Dickie Attwood and Siffert riding around the Solar Productions village in 911s to see who could get the quickest time on the dirt on a Sunday afternoon. God, it was amazing when  I look back on it.

When I think of us, Siffert, Steve and I, doing these high-speed runs, we were going fast with a guy who really wasn’t that experienced. Actually, he probably had more miles in a sports car than me.

At the time I thought he was OK, but with hindsight he was very good. There was the famous run through White House with me leading Steve and Siffert. Both Jo and I said we’ve got to drive flat out because we didn’t want this shit like you had with Grand Prix where they sped up the movie. We wanted it to be real.

We weren’t taking maximum revs, but we were driving hard, 1-2-3 like that. We got to the end of the shot and Steve was right behind me. He got out and his face was as white as his face mask! He said, “You bastards! Hey, John, come here.” [Director] John Sturges came over. “They took me through the corner bloody flat out!” I told him he didn’t have to keep his foot in it. But he did, because he could. That was him, over any other actor. I don’t think Paul Newman would have done that. Paul was far too calculating. Steve was a racer, in my opinion.

I was there from the week after Le Mans until October. I’d dive off at weekends to race. On the way to the European  championship races, we’d bring my F2 car down and I’d do a couple of laps of the Bugatti Circuit. That’s when Steve had a go in it. There were great pictures of him (below), which were all over the press. Can you imagine it today? He did 10 laps and really loved it.

I remember the week I got burnt when the Ferrari I was driving caught fire in what turned out to be the worst accident of my career. I was lying in hospital asking myself, ‘Can I see all right?’ I had cream on my face and it stung like hell. Then I went to race in the European F2 round at Enna. I had a Nomex scarf taped to the bottom of my helmet because I couldn’t wear a face mask, and everything on the left side of my face was open. Each night I’d get back to the hotel and take a look in the mirror – and every line on my face was full of Enna’s volcanic dust. Anyway, you did it because you wanted to and it was fun… Then it would be back to Le Mans for more filming.

In the last three weeks we shared a house together, but I knew nothing about his marriage troubles. I remember him going down the garden, pulling a .45 Colt out and shooting at dustbin lids! ‘Let’s go shootin’ dustbins!’ OK, Steve, why not?

I think we were all disappointed in the film. Really, we expected more from it. But the story was weak and we hadn’t realised Steve actually said very little on camera. After filming we did keep in touch. He used to write letters, but  I never kept them.

Once in LA and we went to a restaurant in Hollywood with Ali MacGraw, who he’d just married. We had a lovely evening together and then I came back to Europe. One day I walked into the farm at Pagham and the girl in reception said, ‘A Mr McQueen has phoned from California. He said give him a call sometime.’ I never did, and he died three weeks later. Women loved him, but he was a man’s man. Obviously, some say he was an arsehole, but he had to play the superstar. He had to be ‘Steve McQueen’. But with us he was just Steve.”