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The Mulsanne Straight (''Ligne Droite des Hunaudières'' in
French) is the name used in English for a formerly long straight of the
Circuit de la Sarthe
The Circuit des 24 Heures du Mans, also known as Circuit de la Sarthe (after the 1906 French Grand Prix triangle circuit) located in Le Mans, Sarthe, France, is a semi-permanent motorsport race course, chiefly known as the venue for the 24 Hou ...
around which the
24 Hours of Le Mans
The 24 Hours of Le Mans (french: link=no, 24 Heures du Mans) is an endurance-focused Sports car racing, sports car race held annually near the town of Le Mans, France. It is the world's oldest active Endurance racing (motorsport), endurance r ...
auto race takes place. Since 1990, the straight is interrupted by two
chicane
A chicane () is a serpentine curve in a road, added by design rather than dictated by geography. Chicanes add extra turns and are used both in motor racing and on roads and streets to slow traffic for safety. For example, one form of chicane is ...
s, with the last section (that includes a slight right turn known as the "Kink") leading to a sharp corner near the village of
Mulsanne
Mulsanne () is a commune in the Sarthe department in the region of Pays de la Loire in north-western France.
Population
Motor racing
The Circuit de la Sarthe, which is used in the sports car endurance race 24 Hours of Le Mans, features the l ...
.
French name
When races are not taking place, the Mulsanne Straight is part of the national road system of France. It is called the ''Ligne Droite des Hunaudières'', a part of the ''route départementale'' RD 338 (formerly
Route Nationale
A ''route nationale'', or simply ''nationale'', is a class of trunk road in France. They are important roads of national significance which cross broad portions of the French territory, in contrast to departmental or communal roads which serve m ...
RN 138) in the
Sarthe
Sarthe () is a department of the French region of Pays de la Loire, and the province of Maine, situated in the ''Grand-Ouest'' of the country. It is named after the river Sarthe, which flows from east of Le Mans to just north of Angers. It had ...
department. The ''Hunaudières'' leads to the village of
Mulsanne
Mulsanne () is a commune in the Sarthe department in the region of Pays de la Loire in north-western France.
Population
Motor racing
The Circuit de la Sarthe, which is used in the sports car endurance race 24 Hours of Le Mans, features the l ...
, its English namesake (though the French ''Route de Mulsanne'' is the name for the road between Mulsanne and
Arnage, with the ''Indianapolis'' corner in between).
History
During the
1911 Grand Prix season, the Grand Prix de France used an early version of the Circuit de la Sarthe, which was 54 km in length, and used a longer version of the current straight, running from Ave George Durand at Le Tertre Rouge, to
Écommoy
Écommoy () is a commune in the Sarthe department in the Pays de la Loire region in north-western France.
The municipality covers . It has 4,744 inhabitants (2019).
See also
*Communes of the Sarthe department
The following is a list of the ...
, before heading towards
Saint-Mars-d'Outillé, Les Jouanneries and
Parigné-l'Évêque.
The circuit (and straight) were shortened in 1921. After exiting the ''Tertre Rouge'' corner, cars would spend almost half of the lap at full throttle, before braking for the right-hand Mulsanne Corner. The
Porsche 917 longtail with its 4.9-litre
flat-12 engine
A flat-twelve engine, also known as a horizontally opposed-twelve, is a twelve-cylinder piston engine with six cylinders on each side of a central crankshaft.
Flat-twelve engines are less common than V12 engines, but they have been used in var ...
, used from 1969 to 1971, had reached . After this, engine size was limited and top speeds dropped until powerful
turbocharged engines, pioneered by French manufacturer
Renault
Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally Renault S.A.) is a French multinational automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company produces a range of cars and vans, and in the past has manufactured ...
, were allowed, as in the 1978
Porsche 935
The Porsche 935 was a race car developed and manufactured by German automaker Porsche. Introduced in 1976 as the factory racing version of the Porsche 930, 911 (930) Turbo and prepared for Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, FIA-Group 5 ( ...
which was clocked at .
Speeds on the straight by
Group C
Group C was a category of sports car racing introduced by the FIA in 1982 and continuing until 1993, with ''Group A'' for touring cars and ''Group B'' for GTs.
It was designed to replace both Group 5 special production cars (closed top touri ...
prototypes
A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and software programming. A prototype is generally used to ...
reached over during the late 1980s. At the beginning of the
1988 24 Hours of Le Mans race,
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
garage owner
Roger Dorchy
Roger Dorchy (born 5 September 1944) is a French former racing driver. He is known for holding the top speed record at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, setting a top speed of with a WM-Peugeot at the end of the Mulsanne Straight at the 1988 24 Hours of L ...
drove for
Welter Racing
Welter Racing is a French sports car maker that mainly enters in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, since 1990 under the name of Rachel and Gérard Welter, Peugeot's late head of design or Rachel Welter (his wife).
History
was well versed in endurance ci ...
in a car dubbed the WM P88. The P88 belonged to a program known as "Project 400" and was powered by a 2.8-litre turbocharged
Peugeot
Peugeot (, , ) is a French brand of automobiles owned by Stellantis.
The family business that preceded the current Peugeot companies was founded in 1810, with a steel foundry that soon started making hand tools and kitchen equipment, and the ...
PRV V6 engine, which sacrificed reliability for power. As a result, the car was
out after just 53 laps (or approximately 4 hours) with turbo, cooling and electrical failures. It was measured by radar travelling at an all-time race record speed of .
There were several fatal high-speed accidents on the Mulsanne Straight in the 1980s.
Jean-Louis Lafosse
Jean-Louis Lafosse (15 March 1941 – 13 June 1981) was a French racing driver. He was most closely associated with the 24 Hours of Le Mans race, in which he finished second in 1975 and 1976.
In the European Touring Car Championship, he won the 19 ...
was killed in
1981, and
Jo Gartner in
1986
The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations.
Events January
* January 1
** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles.
**Spain and Portugal ente ...
; in
1984 a French track marshal was killed in an accident at the Kink involving the two
Aston Martin
Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC is an English manufacturer of luxury sports cars and grand tourers. Its predecessor was founded in 1913 by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford. Steered from 1947 by David Brown, it became associated with ...
Nimrod NRA/C2
The Nimrod NRA/C2 was the only Group C racing car ever built by Nimrod Racing Automobiles in partnership with Aston Martin. It ran initially in 1982 in the World Endurance Championship before also joining the IMSA GT Championship. The final NRA ...
s of British driver
John Sheldon and his American teammate
Drake Olson
Drake Olson (born April 5, 1955) is an American former racing driver from Bridgewater, Connecticut.
Olson made one CART World Series start in 1983 at Road America. In 1984 he drove in three Can-Am races, an IMSA GT Championship race and two Wo ...
. One driver had an extremely lucky escape in 1986: a tyre on British driver
Win Percy
Winston "Win" Percy (born 28 September 1943, near Tolpuddle, Dorset) is a former motor racing driver from England. Percy was British Touring Car Champion three times, and at the time of his retirement was the most successful non-Antipodean drive ...
's 7.0 litre
V12 V12 or V-12 may refer to:
Aircraft
* Mil V-12, a Soviet heavy lift helicopter
* Pilatus OV-12, a planned American military utility aircraft
* Rockwell XFV-12, an American experimental aircraft project
* Škoda-Kauba V12, a Czechoslovak experim ...
-powered
Jaguar XJR-6
The Jaguar XJR-6 is a Group C sports prototype race car, designed, developed and built by TWR, with the aim of competing, from 1985, in the World Sportscar Championship. A total of six Jaguar XJR-6s were built and they contested in the World Sp ...
exploded at , tearing off the rear bodywork and flipping the car into the air "up above the trees". The wreckage finally came to a halt 600 metres down the road. Although the vehicle was almost obliterated, Percy somehow walked away from the crash with nothing more than a badly battered helmet.
Addition of chicanes
The 6km (3.7 mi) Mulsanne Straight caused tyre and engine failures, as cars reached over 320km/h (200mph) before braking hard for the sharp right turn at its end. So two
chicane
A chicane () is a serpentine curve in a road, added by design rather than dictated by geography. Chicanes add extra turns and are used both in motor racing and on roads and streets to slow traffic for safety. For example, one form of chicane is ...
s were added to the straight before
the 1990 race to limit the achievable maximum speed and because the
FIA
FIA is the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (English: International Automobile Federation), the world's governing body for all forms of motor sport where four or more wheels are used.
Fia or FIA may also refer to: People
* Fia Backst ...
decreed it would no longer sanction a circuit with a straight longer than , which is roughly the length of the ''Döttinger Höhe'' straight on the
Nürburgring Nordschleife
The is a 150,000 person capacity motorsports complex located in the town of Nürburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It features a Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a long "North loop" track, built in the 1920s, around the village a ...
. Since their installation, most leading cars have topped out around during qualifying and during the race.
The highest speed on the Straight since 1990 was achieved by a
Nissan R90CK The Nissan R90C was a platform used for Group C racing cars built in 1990 by Nissan Motors for competition in World Sportscar Championship (WSC) based in Europe and the All Japan Sports Prototype Championship (JSPC). The cars based on the basic R90 ...
driven by
Mark Blundell
Mark Blundell (born 8 April 1966) is a British racing driver who competed in Formula One for four seasons, sports cars, and CART. He won the 1992 24 Hours of Le Mans. He was a Formula One presenter for the British broadcaster ITV until the en ...
, which reached 366 km/h (226.9 mph) during qualifying when the
twin-turbo
Twin-turbo (not to be confused with a twincharger setup, which is a combination of a supercharger and a turbocharger) refers to an engine in which two turbochargers work in tandem to compress the intake fuel/air mixture (or intake air, in the case ...
system's
wastegate
A wastegate is a valve that controls the flow of exhaust gases to the turbine wheel in a turbocharged engine system.Robson, D. (2018). Aircraft General Knowledge. Aviation Theory Centre Pty Ltd. .
Diversion of exhaust gases regulates the turbine ...
was stuck shut, leading the engine to produce well over its regular output of 800 bhp. The exact power increase remains unknown.
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.
Today, due to safety concerns, spectators are kept well away from the edge of the straight by marshals and police, and while dining guests can still hear the cars pass, their view is obscured by green covers attached to the safety fencing.
Namesake
Three
Bentley
Bentley Motors Limited is a British designer, manufacturer and marketer of luxury cars and SUVs. Headquartered in Crewe, England, the company was founded as Bentley Motors Limited by W. O. Bentley (1888–1971) in 1919 in Cricklewood, North ...
cars are named after the straight and nearby villages: the
Mulsanne
Mulsanne () is a commune in the Sarthe department in the region of Pays de la Loire in north-western France.
Population
Motor racing
The Circuit de la Sarthe, which is used in the sports car endurance race 24 Hours of Le Mans, features the l ...
, the
Arnage, and the
Hunaudières concept car.
GM offered its 1970 Corvette in a color named Mulsanne blue.
References
Bibliography
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{{coord missing, France
Sports venues in Sarthe
Buildings and structures in Le Mans
Sport in Le Mans
Tourist attractions in Sarthe