The Mulsanne Straight — formally the Ligne droite des Hunaudières — is the most famous stretch of road in endurance racing. Cars once reached over 400km/h on this 6km straight before chicanes were added in 1990 for safety reasons. For the rest of the year it is the D338 departmental road, used by farm vehicles and cyclists.
Driving or cycling the straight is a curiously deflating experience: it is flat, featureless, and lined with trees, and it is quite hard to imagine Formula One-class cars hurtling through here in the dark. That disconnect between the legendary and the mundane is part of the appeal. The village of Mulsanne at the far end has a corner named after it — one of the most famous braking zones in motorsport, where drivers slow from maximum speed to about 60km/h in a matter of seconds.