With an all-new radical design that brings up a new breath in motorsports, the DeltaWing had generated quite a chatter even before its maiden race at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Unfortunately for the No.0 car, the race came to a premature end as the DeltaWing was shoved into the walls by Toyota’s No.7 TS030, causing a great deal of damage which had forced the unique race machine to retire from the race.
Keen to show/prove that it is a worthy race machine born with the strength to overcome the challenges posed in an endurance race, the DeltaWing will again see action at the upcoming Petit Le Mans, the ALMS series finale at Road Atlanta on the 17-20 October.
But instead of having the previous Nismo trio that piloted the DeltaWing back in Le Mans (Satoshi Motoyama, Marino Franchitti and Michael Krumm), the combination of GT Academy’s Lucas Ordonez and ALMS PC class champion Gunnar Jeannette will be the ones behind the wheels for the 10-hour, 1,000-mile (1,600km) race as the trio have their commitment focused on somewhere else at the moment.
The crash that had crippled the DeltaWing however was not a total disaster, as after making 75 laps around the Circuit De La Sarthe, the technicians behind this race car were able to gather a vast amount of vital readings that they needed. The collected data showed that the car ran on their targeted lap times, achieved the desired fuel consumption of 10.7mpg and even the expected tire wear of 600 miles per set, compared to an LMP2 racer that needed a tire change after running for 300 miles.
