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Hollywood actor Brad Pitt will wave the cars off the grid ahead of the next month's Le Mans 24 Hours.

The 52-year-old will take the role of honorary starter performed last year by Ford boss William Clay Ford Jr and in 2014 by two-time Formula 1 world champion Fernando Alonso.

The incumbent of that role waves the French Tricolore at the beginning of the formation lap rather than starting the race proper.

The move was announced today on the personal Twitter account of Pierre Fillon, president of the Le Mans organiser the Automobile Club de l'Ouest.

The story behind Pitt's role at Le Mans on June 18 is unclear, but the star of Fight Club and Ocean's Eleven has been linked to a film project about the Ford versus Ferrari battles at Le Mans in the 1960s.

Director and producer Michael Mann is known to be working on a script titled Go Like Hell based on a book by US author and journalist Brock Yates about Enzo Ferrari.

Pitt is not the first star from the world of cinema to be given the honorary starter role.

Steve McQueen waved the French national flag together with the US amabassador in France at the time in 1971, the year of the release of the film Le Mans in which he starred.

French actor Alain Delon started the 1996 race and director Luc Besson was given the job in 2002, the year that filming for his 2003 movie Michel Vaillant took place over the course of the race.

The role of starter has traditionally been given to a French dignitary or politician or a motor industry figure.