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Event Information:
The
24 Hours of Le Mans will be the
79th Grand Prix of Endurance, taking
place on June 11–12, at the
Circuit de la Sarthe, Le Mans,
France, and organised by the
Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO). It
will be the third round of the
Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, and
will be part of a World Championship
or International Cup for the first
time since 1992, when it was part of
the World Sportscar Championship.
The Circuit de la Sarthe, located
near Le Mans, France, is a
semi-permanent race course most
famous as the venue for the 24 Hours
of Le Mans auto race. The track uses
local roads that remain open to the
public most of the year. The
circuit, in its present
configuration, is 13.629 km (8.469
mi) long, making it one of the
longest circuits in the world.
Le
Mans is a race where up to 85% of
the time is spent on full throttle,
meaning immense stress on engine and
drivetrain components. However, the
times spent reaching maximum speed
also mean tremendous wear on the
brakes and suspension as cars must
slow from over 200 mph (322 km/h) to
around 65 mph (105 km/h) for the end
of Mulsanne in a short distance.
Downforce in the era of Group C cars
helped braking to some degree but
presently cars are tending towards
low downforce to seek higher speeds
in the face of power limiting
regulations. Le Mans was most famous
for its 6 km (3.7 mi) long straight,
called Ligne Droite des Hunaudières,
a part of the route départementale
(for the Sarthe département) D338
(formerly Route Nationale N138). The
Targa Florio featured the even
longer Buonfornello straight along
the coast, though. As the
Hunaudières leads to the village of
Mulsanne, it is often called the
Mulsanne Straight in English, even
though the proper Route du Mulsanne
is the one to Arnage. The Porsche
917 long tail had reached 380 km/h,
but after engine size was limited,
the top speed dropped until the
Group C allowed powerful turbo
engines. Speeds on the straight
reached over 400 km/h (250 mph)
during the late 1980s, and the
combination of high speed and high
downforce caused tyre and engine
failures, as this circuit was
extremely hard on both tyres and
engines before 1990, less so in 1990
and beyond. Due to safety concerns
two roughly equally spaced chicanes
were consequently added to the
straight before the 1990 race to
limit the achievable maximum speed.
In 1990 FIA decreed that it would no
longer sanction any circuit which
had a straight longer than two
kilometres.
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