There were 51 starters in the Le Mans race, but to all intents and purposes it was a straight fight between Ferrari and Ford, with an equal number of cars on each side, for the Americans really put in a lot of material this year. Ferrari relied on his works team, his agents and private owners, while Ford shared out its entries between Shelby, Ford-France, Ford Advanced Vehicles of Slough and Alan Mann, and loaned cars to people who had entries but no car, such as Rob Walker, whose Serenissima VS Prototypes did not turn up. After scrutineering, the score stood at 11-a-side, with Ford running a mixture of 7- and 4.7-litre GT40s, plus powering some Cobras, and Ferrari having P1s, P2s and a few 250 LMs.

Among the rest were an Iso-Grifo, with fibreglass body, a brand new ‘birdcage’ Maserati with a 5-litre V8 in the back, two 8-cylinder Porsche coupés, a 6-cylinder Porsche in a 904, the Dino 166 Ferrari, the Rover-BRM turbine car, a trio of works Alfa Romeo GTZ, Austin Healey Sprite, an MG-B, and numerous Triumph Spitfires and Renault-Alpines.

For the first time in history the first evening of practice had to be abandoned, because of a tornado that swept across La Sarthe, but the next evening was fine and dry, and the works Ferraris set the pace, with Surtees putting in a lap at 3min 38.1sec. However, the Ford coupés were not far behind, though the 7-litres were not handling too well. The abandoned practice session was replaced by an additional one on Friday evening, but being the night before the race a lot of people did not bother, being content with Thursday’s times, and these included Surtees, so that Ford was able to take the honours and finally get the 7-litre mid-engine coupés to handle properly. Phil Hill shattered everyone with a lap of 3min 33sec – 227.509kph (approx. 141.5mph).