The team behind the radical Nissan DeltaWing says it has 'unfinished business' after being unceremoniously shoved out of the famous Le Mans 24 Hours in June - so they've entered it in the American Le Mans Series finale at Road Atlanta on 19/20 October.
The DeltaWing was designed and built with the aim of finishing Les 24 Heures du Mans on half the fuel and half the number of tyres of conventional sports prototypes, but it was forced to retire from the French endurance classic after six hours, after colliding with another car.
Japanese driver Satoshi Motoyama tried heroically to repair the impact damage at the side of the Sarthe circuit for 90 minutes before having to admit defeat, earning enormous support for the team from fans.
Based on fuel consumption and tyre-wear data gathered in the six hours that the DeltaWing ran at Le Mans, it was on course to achieve its goal. Over 24 hours most LMP2-category cars used nine sets of tyres and about 2350 litres of fuel - that's about 55 litres per 100km!
After just more than six hours the 1.6- litre DIG-T DeltaWing was still on its second set of tyres and returning fuel consumption of 26.5 litres per 100km.
“Le Mans was a huge success for us.”
Nissan in Europe general manager Darren said: “The car did everything we wanted it to do and more, proving that the technology we were testing in the world's most public laboratory works.
“The only thing that didn't go our way was the way the race ended for us, which was entirely out of our control - but we were blown away by the support and goodwill from the fans so we feel we owe it to them to race the DeltaWing again.”
Racing commitments mean that none of the three drivers who shared the car at Le Mans - Motoyama, Marino Franchitti and Michael Krumm - will be available for the 10-hour, 1600km Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, so Nissan has called up Spanish driver Lucas Ordonez (a graduate of Nissan's GT Academy) and Gunnar Jeannette, winner of the PC Class in the 2011 American Le Mans Series.
The team believes that the Petit Le Mans is the perfect race to prove the car can be competitive on a tight and twisty conventional racing circuit, as apposed to the 300km/h Sarthe circuit at Le Mans, most of which is actually public roads for 51 weeks of the year.
COOL RUNNINGS And that proof is important: as part of the merger between America's two major sports-car racing series, ALMS and Grand Am Road Racing, provision will be made for the DeltaWing to run in ALMS in 2013.
Then, subject to certain safety standards, the DeltaWing will be allowed to run within the regulations of the resulting new championship, scheduled to start in 2014, alongside the Daytona and Le Mans prototypes.
Meanwhile, the DeltaWing's designer, Ben Bowlby, said: “At Petit Le Mans, we'll have a chance to show American race fans just how cool this car is - and prove that it works on a much tighter track than the flat-out Le Mans circuit.”