The race that clinched Graham Hill's triple crown: Henri Pescarolo on Le Mans '72

“Two years later Jabby Crombac came to tell me that Matra wanted me to drive for them at Le Mans. I told him no. But in the end I agreed to do it. I saw it was the right team and the right car, and that there was a chance to win.”

But soon there was another sticking point.

“I was so surprised,” admits Pesca, “when they told me I would be driving with Graham Hill. At first I said, ‘No, I don’t want him.’ I was concerned about how he would cope with the conditions, the dangers. Le Mans is so different from F1. It’s a road race, the most dangerous race at that time. I said, ‘What if it’s raining in the night, or there’s fog in the morning, do you think he will be prepared to take risks?’”

Pescarolo’s worries were understandable. Although Hill had plenty of experience of Le Mans – he numbered Stirling Moss, Richie Ginther and Jackie Stewart among his previous co-drivers there, and had finished second in 1964 alongside Jo Bonnier in Maranello Concessionaires’ Ferrari 330P – he hadn’t started this enduro event since 1966, and, at 43, his powers appeared to be waning.

“I was still a young driver,” says Pescarolo. “Graham Hill was a legend. I had never even spoken to him. That would have been impossible for me. But eventually I said, ‘Okay, I will drive with him.’

“And so he came to the team, became my team-mate – and in a very short time a real friend too. It was strange. It was as if it had always been like that. It was so easy from the first contact. He was such a fantastic guy. And he was bloody quick of course.” In all conditions, too. “When I looked at his lap times during the night, and in the rain, I thought, ‘Okay, I can sleep now.’ His speed in the night was one of the reasons we won.

“And we were good together as a team. That helped. We spent the week before the race together, staying in the same château, and it was a fantastic time for me.”

“We beat the other Matras with their F1 drivers – François Cevert, Jean-Pierre Beltoise – because we drove as a team. It was the same with Gérard Larrousse and me in the two years after. But with Graham it was something very, very special. I was so pleased for him because that was his big target: to win Le Mans.”

Interviewed after the race, Hill was equally generous in praise of his team-mate – and team: “The rivalry between the Matra drivers was intense. We all wanted to win. My car was still pulling the same revs down the Mulsanne Straight at the end of the race as it had at the start. A fantastic car – and the best team I’ve ever driven for at Le Mans.

“I cannot praise Henri Pescarolo highly enough. We shared the four-hour stints throughout the race, but it was Henri who actually drove across the line, which was only right as it was the first French win for over 20 years.”

The French had gone winless at their most famous race since the Rosiers’ 1950 victory in a Talbot-Lago.

“There was an explosion of joy after the race,” remembers Pescarolo. “Right through the night, with champagne at a big Moët et Chandon party. Then the whole team went to lunch with President Pompidou at the Elysée Palace. Incredible.

“Matra had been trying to win at Le Mans for so long and now they had their first victory. It was absolutely fabulous for them and for me. Everybody was calling us the Matraciens, the men of Matra. We had been really ready to kill ourselves for the team.”

And 43-year-old Graham Hill, a very English Englishman in a very French team at the most French of races, had matched them all the way.

“He was perfect,” smiles Pesca.