HAVING lost more arguments with pavements than I have won in
understeering, front-engined road cars, I am watching with keen interest the
experiment by Nissan to rewrite the designbook for raceers in their Nismo LM
P1.
The team principal and technical director of Nismo, Ben Bowlby said
the car will be a first in the Le
Mans endurance race, where it is to date “unique” for front wheel drive to attempt a win.
Mans endurance race, where it is to date “unique” for front wheel drive to attempt a win.
Traditionally, racers use the momentum from the weight of an
oversteering rear-engined car to push through a corner, but Bowlby predicts
Nismo would be able to, well, just bowl by the competitors using the proven
benefits of a front engine’s weight on a straight, with the added advantage of
the downforce from the bigger body in the corners.
Jann Mardenborough, the 2011 GT Academy winner and now LM 1 driver,
said the long bonnet above Nismo’s front-wheel, front-engined approach will give
them extra downforce to through corners faster and a couple of mile faster along
Le Man’s long straights.
“The straigths at Le Man is very long, you can gain a lot of time
being a couple of miles an hour faster than the oppisition,” said
Mardenborough.
To overcome the understeer is the reason why other cars do not put
a big block in the front of a 500 plus horsepower car.
“We are certainly pushing on the boundaries of people’s
expectations and beliefs of what a Le Man car is and what can be fast.”
If the Nismo team are right, the GT-R LM will take the race to the
limit against the Porsche 919 Hybrid and Audi R18 e-tron come June 13 to 14.
If they are wrong, the racing fraternity remains grateful to Nissan
for not just pushing the boundaries, but making racing interesting.
