Plans to make a Hollywood movie about British motor racing legend Sir Jackie Stewart have been shelved following a complaint from the star's wife.

Scottish actor Ewan MCGregor had been tipped to play the Formula 1 star in the film, but Stewart's wife Helen has now revealed the project was scrapped after she refused to let producers portray a fictionalised affair between her and French driver Francois Cevert.

Helen insists the storyline they wanted to use was too far from the truth, so she ordered a plot change.

She tells Britain's The Mail on Sunday, "It was going to be a big film - but they wanted to say that I'd had an affair with Francois Cevert... and I wouldn't let them do it, because it wasn't true. Francois was described as the most exciting man in France at that time. We had great fun with him... But Jackie and I are childhood sweethearts and we have been happily married for 50 years... Anyway they're not making the film. That's the sole reason it's scrapped - which seems a bit stupid to me seeing as it's not true in the first place."

Cevert, who was a close friend of the couple, was killed in a race crash in 1973 and the tragedy prompted Stewart to retire from the sport.