Nissan DeltaWing to Contest ALMS’ Petit Le Mans in October

The Nissan DeltaWing will race again, the Japanese automaker announced today. After being forced off the track at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, the experimental race car now hopes to make a comeback at the American Le Mans Series’ Petit Le Mans race next month. There, Nissan hopes the DeltaWing can achieve what it set out to do at Le Mans: finish the race using half the fuel and tires of conventional sports car prototypes.

The DeltaWing’s Le Mans hopes were crushed when contact with the Toyota LMP racer of Kazuki Nakajima sent the car off the track and into a wall. Driver Satoshi Motoyama attempted to fix the car himself for 90 minutes before eventually retiring from competition. Though it only completed six hours of the 24-hour race, the DeltaWing was running at 10.7 mpg – more than double the mileage observed on an LMP2-class car – Nissan says. Now, the unorthodox racer has its sight set on the ALMS season finale at Road Atlanta, a 1000-mile, 10-hour endurance race. Nissan says that Petit Le Mans will allow the DeltaWing to shine, as it takes place on a more traditional course compared to the high-speed track of Le Mans’ Circuit de la Sarthe.

Because Le Mans DeltaWing drivers Motoyama, Michael Krumm, and Marino Franchitti all have existing race commitments, neither are available to race the car at Petit Le Mans. Instead, Lucas Ordonez, winner of Nissan’s GT Academy and now a rookie sports car driver, will pilot the car along with ALMS Porsche Cup winner Gunnar Jeannette. The announcement of the DeltaWing’s entry follows the recent merger between ALMS and rival sports car racing series Grand-Am. A provision for the DeltaWing will be made to allow the car to race in the new series, which is expected to kick off in 2014.

Petit Le Mans runs from October 17-20 at Road Atlanta.

Source: Nissan