The making was a race itself as fellow Hollywood icons Steve McQueen and John Sturges planned to make a similar movie exploring the life of racers, with the McQueen/Sturges team initially using the title "Day of the Champion". Due to their contract with the German motorsports complex Nürburgring, Frankenheimer had to turn over 27 reels shot there to Sturges. Frankenheimer got ahead in schedule terms anyway, however, and McQueen's project ran into a wide variety of problems. Said German race track was only mentioned briefly in "Grand Prix". McQueen's racing film eventually took the title "Le Mans", with it seeing a 1971 release (five years after "Grand Prix").