2002 in Le Mans - It was the year of a third victory for the Audi R8 and Frank Biela, Tom Kristensen and Emanuele Pirro, who became the first three-driver team to win Le Mans three times in a row. Corvette was also on a roll, winning the GT class for the second time running, ahead of the Ferrari 550 Maranello that was in the lead until a technical failure. The Maranello came back to win the following year, marking the first stage in Ferrari’s comeback in GT. 2002 was also the year that the film adaptation of the graphic novel Michel Vaillant was shot. The film is based on the album Le 13 au départ, the first in a series of stories about the 24 hours of Le Mans.

2002 on the big screen - For the first time ever, Star Wars was not the biggest box-office hit worldwide: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Spiderman all attracted more viewers. Martin Scorsese was part of the so-called "New Hollywood" movement founded in the seventies by a circle of film directors including George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Brian de Palma and Francis Ford Coppola. Scorsese’s Gangs of New York was the first of many films in which he directed Leonardo di Caprio. The twentieth James Bond film Die Another Day was the last starring Irishman Pierce Brosnan as the world’s best-known secret agent. He was replaced by Daniel Craig. In France, Roman Polanski was awarded the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for The Pianist.

Jean-Philippe Doret / ACO - Translated from French by Emma Paulay

Photo: LE MANS (SARTHE, FRANCE), CIRCUIT DES 24 HEURES, LE MANS 24 HOURS, SATURDAY 15 & SUNDAY 16 JUNE 2002. For the film Michel Vaillant, a Lola chassis driven by Emmanuel Clérico, Philippe Gache and Michel Neugarten was made to resemble a Vaillante.