Cast your minds back, if you will, to 1983. The year of Return of the Jedi and The A-Team. It was also the year of a showdown in the sometimes dangerous and always hotly contested world of rally racing. The 1983 World Rally Championship saw the German Audi Quattro A2 team, led by Hannu Mikkola, fighting it out against Walter Röhrl and the Italian Lancia 037; it’s a rivalry that this dramatisation depicts as a David v Goliath battle, pitting the technologically advanced Germans against the scrappier and more strategic Italian underdogs.

Liberties have been taken, but probably not too many that people outside rallying diehards will mind. Certain real-world factors here do not lend themselves particularly to the dynamics of thrilling fiction: the season playing out over a full calendar year, the split focus of the drivers’ and manufacturers’ championship, the gradual accumulation of points across the season … we’re not exactly in the realms of a be-all-and-end-all, down to the wire, penalty shootout.

There’s an admirable sense of tastefulness to the approach here of Italian director Stefano Mordini, working from a script he wrote with Filippo Bologna and Riccardo Scamarcio. Michael Mann’s recent film Ferrari had the good sense to print the legend, giving thrill-seekers what they want in terms of interpersonal drama and explosive racing set-pieces. Mordini’s film, though, is a handsomely made, stylish-looking piece of cinema, with some beautifully lensed racing scenes and great 1980s wardrobes – but when you sit down to watch something called Race for Glory you do want your heart to beat faster. This can’t quite get away from the lurking sense that it could do with just a little bit more rev in its engine.

• Race for Glory: Audi vs Lancia is released on 5 February on digital platforms.