Mulsanne Straight

Circuit map

Part of the Mulsanne straight.

The Mulsanne Straight (Ligne Droite des Hunaudières in French) is the name used in English for a formerly 6 km (3.7 mi) long straight of the Circuit des 24 Heures around which the 24 Hours of Le Mans auto race takes place. Since 1990, the straight is interrupted by two chicanes, with the last section, that includes a kink and a hump, leading to the sharp corner near the village of Mulsanne.

French name

When race meetings are not taking place the Mulsanne Straight is part of the national road system of France. It is called Ligne Droite des Hunaudières, a part of the route départementale (for the Sarthe département) D338 (formerly Route Nationale N138). The Hunaudières leads to the village of Mulsanne which is the reason for its English name (though the French Route de Mulsanne is the name for the road, and straight, between Mulsanne and Arnage, with the Indianapolis corner in between).^[1]

Speed and chicanes

After exiting the Tertre Rouge corner, cars would spend almost half of the lap at full throttle, before braking for Mulsanne Corner. The Porsche 917 long tail, used from 1969 to 1971, had reached 362 km/h (225 mph),.^[2] After engine size was limited, the top speed dropped until powerful turbo engines were allowed, like in the 1978 Porsche 935 which was clocked at 367 km/h (228 mph).^[3] Speeds on the straight by the Group C prototypes reached over 400 km/h (250 mph) during the late 1980s. At the beginning of the 1988 24 Hours of Le Mans race, Paris garage owner Roger Dorchy driving for Welter Racing in a "Project 400" car dubbed the WM P87, and powered by a 2.8 litre turbocharged Peugeot V6 engine, which sacrificing reliability for speed (the car was out after just 53 laps or approximately 4 hours with turbo, cooling and electrical failure), was clocked by radar travelling at an all-time race record 407 km/h (253 mph).

Fatal high speed accidents in the 1980s happened to Jean-Louis Lafosse in 1981 and to Jo Gartner in 1986, while in 1984 a French track marshal was killed in an accident at the Kink involving the two Aston Martin Nimrod NRA/C2's of British driver John Sheldon and his team mate Drake Olson.^[4] One driver had an extremely lucky escape in 1986. British driver Win Percy had a tyre on his V12 powered Jaguar XJR-6 explode at some 386 km/h (240 mph), tearing off the rear bodywork and flipping the car into the air "up above the trees".^[5] The wreckage finally came to a halt 600 m down the road. However, despite almost obliterating the vehicle, Percy somehow walked away from the crash with nothing more than a badly battered helmet.

As the combination of high speed and high downforce caused tyre and engine failures, two roughly equally spaced chicanes were consequently added to the straight before the 1990 race to limit the achievable maximum speed.^[6] The chicanes were added also because the FIA decreed it would no longer sanction a circuit which had a straight longer than 2 kilometres (1.2 mi).,^[7] which is roughly the length of the Döttinger Höhe straight at the Nürburgring Nordschleife.

Spectator access

In the past spectators could obtain magnificent views of cars racing along the straight during the Le Mans, including while dining at various restaurants—such as Restaurant de 24 Heures and les Virages de L'Arche—located very close to the road. However, in 1990 the viewing experience obtained at both restaurants was diminished with the introduction of the chicanes.^[8] Today due to safety concerns spectators are kept well away from the edge of the straight by marshals and police and while guests can dine at Auberge des Hunaudières, Shanghai des 24 Heures and the Hôtel Arbor, and hear the cars pass, the view is obscured by green covers attached to the safety fencing.^[9][10]

See also

• The Bentley Mulsanne and Bentley Arnage are named after the corners and thus villages.

Notes

1. ACO 2015.
2. Fuller 2010.
3. Leffingwell, Randy (2005). Porsche 911: Perfection by Design. Motorbooks. p. 155.
4. "1984 - Le Mans — John Sheldon's massive crash". Retrieved 10 September 2011.
5. http://www.gearwheelsmag.co.uk/archive/win_percy_feature_17.htm
6. Speedhunters staff 2008.
7. RC staff 2015.
8. MSM staff 1990.
9. ACO 2015a.
10. RT staff 2015.

References

• ACO (2015). "La route des records". 24 Heures du Mans 2011 (in French). Retrieved 25 July 2015.
• ACO (9 April 2015a), "The legendary spots on the circuit: The Mulsanne Straight", 24 Hours of Le Mans, retrieved 25 July 2015
• Fuller, Michael J. (2010), "Mulsanne's Corner: Maximum Speeds at Le Mans, 1961-1989", Mulsanne's Corner, technical analysis of contemporary sports prototype racing cars, retrieved July 2015 Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
• MSM staff (June 1990), "Le Mans Spectator Guide", Motor Sport Magazine Archive, retrieved 25 July 2015
• RC staff (2015), "Le Mans", RacingCircuits.info, retrieved 25 July 2015
• RT staff (2015), "Eating & drinking at Le Mans", Race Tours, retrieved 25 July 2015
• Speedhunters staff (13 June 2008), "Temple Of Speed>> The Mulsanne Straight", Speedhunters, retrieved 25 July 2015