24 Hours of Le Mans 2011 Live Streaming at the Circuit de la Sarthe

The 2011 24 Hours of Le Mans will be the 79th Grand Prix of Endurance, taking place on June 11–12, 2011 at the Circuit de la Sarthe, Le Mans, France, and organised by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO).

This live feed is at the Circuit de la Sarthe for the 24 Hours Le Mans 2011:

Le mans 24 Live

Race Information:

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.