Yesterday, Nissan’s radical DeltaWing racer completed a successful 54-lap session with driver Michael Krumm, Satoshi Motoyama and Marino Franchitti behind the wheel. This means that each driver could do their alloted amount of laps, which qualified them for the endurance race starting on 16 June. Apart from its triangular design, the DeltaWing is a unique racecar in the sense that it has half the weight, half the power and half the aerodynamic drag compared with the top runners at 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Motoyama completed the fastest lap when he did a three-minute 47,98-second lap. That is close to the three-minute 45-second time the Deltawing will have to achieve during official practice (starting Wednesday 8 June at 16h00) as requested by the race officials.
The DeltaWing’s concept originator, Ben Bowlby, had the following to say after the session: “I am certainly very happy with the results today. It would have been tragic if we had been plagued with technical issues when we were just trying to get drivers qualified for the race. We've shown the ACO (Automobile Club de l'Ouest, the organising entity behind Le Mans) that we've met their desired criteria to run a lap time of around three minutes, 45 seconds in around the same cadence as everyone else on pit stops.
The DeltaWing is powered by a 224 kW, 1,6-litre Nissan DIG-T turbocharged petrol engine.
Follow these links for videos on the development of the DeltaWing’s engine and tyres, as well as windtunnel testing.
*Be sure to get a June issue of CAR for a full feature on the Nissan DeltaWing.
**CAR journalists Wilhelm Lutjeharms and Kyle Kock will be reporting from Le Mans this year.