Mulsanne is the terminus of the Hunaudières Straight — a 5.8 km stretch of the D338 public road that connects Le Mans to Mulsanne village, used for the 24 Hours race since 1923 and almost continuously unmodified until 1990. The corner is a 90° right-hander at the end of the road, into the village proper, taken at approximately 60 km/h on the racing line.
The braking zone is one of the longest of any in international motorsport. Pre-1990 it was longer — cars reached terminal velocities approaching 400 km/h on the original chicane-free Hunaudières, and the braking zone consumed almost 400 metres of road.
In 1990, after the previous decade had seen the WSC Group C cars regularly exceeding 380 km/h on the Hunaudières (a Jaguar XJR-9 hit 397 km/h in 1988; a Sauber-Mercedes C9 reached 403 km/h), the FIA mandated two chicanes be added to the straight to bleed the terminal speed. The two Mulsanne Chicanes (officially named "Playstation" and "Michelin" chicanes for sponsor reasons in different eras) are taken at approximately 110 km/h, breaking the straight into three roughly equal segments and reducing the cars' maximum speed to a more conservative 340 km/h.
The chicanes were unloved by drivers at the time — they removed the defining feature of the Le Mans lap, the sustained six-second flat-out commitment at over 380 km/h — but they have unquestionably made the race safer. Mulsanne Corner itself was unaffected; only the straight leading to it was modified.
1955 — The 1955 Le Mans disaster was triggered by an accident near the start–finish straight, but the chain of safety reforms that followed reshaped every braking zone on the circuit, Mulsanne included.
1969 — Jacky Ickx protested the traditional Le Mans start by walking deliberately to his car after the flag dropped; he then drove the famous "Ickx win," catching the front-runners and winning the race overall. The recovery to the lead was accomplished primarily through the Hunaudières/Mulsanne sequence.
1988 — Jaguar XJR-9 recorded the highest measured speed on the Hunaudières at 397 km/h, the year before the 400 km/h barrier was breached.
1989 — A Sauber-Mercedes C9 recorded 403 km/h on the Hunaudières — the highest officially-recorded speed at Le Mans, prompting the 1990 chicane addition.
1999 — Mercedes-Benz CLR cars suffered three separate aerodynamic-induced backflips at Le Mans during practice and the race, with Mark Webber the most-publicised victim. The Mercedes team withdrew mid-race. Mulsanne Corner's braking zone was implicated in the events, where compressed air under the car at high speed caused the front to lift.
2011 — Allan McNish's Audi R18 was launched on the entry to Mulsanne after contact with a Ferrari 458 of Anthony Beltoise. The car barrel-rolled into the catch-fencing at high speed; McNish was unhurt.
The village of Mulsanne sits at the southeastern corner of the public-roads circuit. For 51 weeks of the year the corner is a normal traffic intersection in a small French village; for one week — the second week of June — it is filled with grandstands and the entire village reorganises around the race. The Mulsanne Corner grandstand is one of the most-popular spectator locations at Le Mans, partly for the prolonged braking display and partly for the village's bar culture during race week.
Mulsanne Corner is in Le Mans Ultimate (le_mans), iRacing (le_mans with WEC layout), Assetto Corsa (rss_le_mans_24h mod and various community mods), and AMS2 has both modern Circuit de la Sarthe and the shorter Bugatti circuit. The transition from 350+ km/h to 60 km/h is one of the great braking-zone simulations in sim racing — and one of the most-difficult to drive well, as the long braking zone requires careful pedal modulation across changing brake-disc temperature and the tyre's pressure-sensitive load profile.