Steve McQueen’s character Michael Delaney falls just short of victory in the film Le Mans. The Hollywood star had dreamt of making a drama-doc of his contesting the 1970 race in a 917 co-driven by F1 world champion Jackie Stewart. His insurers decreed otherwise. Fellow A-lister Paul Newman, however, fell just short for real in 1979, the 935 he was co-driving losing several laps to a stuck wheel nut. Both races suffered monsoons – 1979 was the slowest since 1958 – in stark contrast to cool, dry 1971: the fastest until 2010.

Porsche was victorious in all three and, having striven for almost 20 years for its breakthrough, would win five from 10. The first two were secured by 917s: Herrmann, co-driven by Attwood, gaining revenge for his near miss of 1969 – and promptly retiring; and Gijs van Lennep and Helmut Marko, unaware of their one-off lightweight mag-alloy chassis, covering a ‘transatlantic’ 3313 miles at 138mph.

The latter race introduced the two-by-two rolling start – at last allowing barrier to separate pit from track – and bade farewell to Maison Blanche. The insertion of a sweeping section of track funded by Porsche lopped 18mph from the lap’s speed while increasing its challenge. Ironically Porsche domination was then put on hold while Matra ended France’s 21-year drought – with a hat-trick of wins. The first – Graham Hill’s completion of his unique Triple Crown – and third – Henri Pescarolo’s hat-trick – were aided by late withdrawals of the likely main rivals: Ferrari in 1972 and Alfa Romeo in 1974. But the middle win was a tooth-and-claw affair, from which Scuderia Ferrari, valiant in defeat, only now is set to return. These home successes went some way to disguising the fact that 3-litre ‘two-seater F1’ prototypes had since 1972 failed to capture the imagination in the manner of its ‘big banger’ forebears. Matra’s withdrawal – combined with the oil crisis – forced the ACO to get creative. The first idea was a run at a 7mpg limit – forerunner to Group C of the 1980s – and resulted in victory for Mirage: the first British win since 1959 and the last for Wyer. It was also the first for the Cosworth DFV engine – dominant in F1 but a taskmaster over longer distances because of harsh inherent vibrations – and the first of three for Ickx’s partnership with Derek Bell: 11 wins between them.

Ickx enchanced his reputation as endurance racing’s best by winning for Porsche in 1976 and 1977. The former was a relatively straightforward affair – the first for a turbocharged car – but the second was a tour de force. Switched to a second 936 after his first had suffered engine failure, Ickx spent 11 of the next 13 hours at lap record speed through the night recovering from near last. Aided by a spate of piston failures for their Alpine-Renault rivals, original pairing Hurley Haywood and Jürgen Barth then coaxed this hard-pressed car home.

Porsche then stumbled in 1978, allowing Renault the victory that enabled it to concentrate on F1. Therein lay a problem. F1’s growth via TV was putting the squeeze on all others. Le Mans wasn’t an easy sell – Porsche was the only works team of 1979 – but the USP of racing’s longest day remained: narratives given time to ebb and flow. It’s why McQueen had been so hot on a screenplay.