well in this context the nismo was only going to race on pavement so fwd was bad starting point
The project being shelved, it seems that we will never know the validity of the Nissan GT-R Nismo concept. Bowlby knew perfectly well the pros and cons of the chosen configuration. Maybe he was too focused on the aero gains, maybe not. It was not so drastic, but I well remember the critics predicting it would fail when Panoz wheeled out a front-engine LMP at the time. In fact, the duo Jan Magnussen-David Brabham did quite well with it; they won a few races and humiliated AUDI several times! Not bad for a private effort ...
No it doesn't. No matter what they do the wheel layout implies that it will ALWAYS be slow around corners and unless you are drag racing that is where most of the lap time is made. It is simply a stupid concept, end of story. Same motor/gearbox, etc. in a Lotus Seven type car and it would piss all over the Delta-wing. 3 wheels only works with 2 front wheels ... the designer should be sharing what he/she smokes or drinks, must be real good stuff! Pete
, but we all watched and laughed at it's Le Mans attempt. You don't have to have much of a brain to work out that lap times are all about the corners, but many years ago I did actually prove this by breaking my local circuit up into straights and corners and timed each section and low and behold the very fast top speed wise cars were only a fraction quicker through the straight section than much slower cars. What this process showed clearly is that to win on a circuit you need to be able to corner efficiently ... and of course this is why down force and grip is so important in F1. BTW this track (Pukekohe, near Auckland in New Zealand is mainly 2 straights with a few corners at each end so if any circuit one would think would be dominated by straight line performance it would be this circuit ... but it isn't). So yes the Delta-wing, as many of us on this site agreed in the previous thread on it, is seriously flawed for a race car as it cannot and never will be able to produce serious G's during cornering therefore giving away valuable time that it cannot make up on the straights no matter how clever the aero gains are. Pete
Well, they never had the hybrid power working, so it's impossible to really know if the concept could work or not.
I think that's the best we can say. Had the Nissan Nismo project received the same attention than the "conventional" layout, and benefited of years of research and development, we could be able to say if it's better, equal or worse than any other configuration. But it didn't, so we don't know. Only the armchair critics and so-called experts can always criticise what was a interesting attempt to come off the beaten track.
In the 50s, Jaguar built a car that was purely designed for top speed, sacrifying cornering speed, to race at Le Mans. There were no chicanes on the 7km the Hunaudieres Straight then, and they considered that the race would be won there. They were right. The D-type Jaguar never performed well on other tracks of the time (Sebring, Nurburgring, Monza, Targa Florio, etc...) because it didn't have a very good handling, and basic rear suspension. What it had was 20mph top speed more than the competition (Ferrari, Maserati, Aston Martin) and disc brakes. But it had to be driven gingerly round corners. The D-type Jaguar won 4 times at Le Mans though. This, to put your statement into perspective. Modern tracks have lots of corners and chicanes to break top speed. Nowadays, braking and acceleration is the most important parts of racing, even challenging corners are often erased by the circuit owners and promoters. Downforce has also changed completely motor racing.
Clearly, the Nissan/NISMO brain trust came into the deal with the misconceived notion that this design would upend the might of Audi, Toyota and Porsche utilizing the low drag approach. Or, more likely, it was all just an extremely expensive PR exercise. What doesn't make any sense is, how in this day and age, they could not get the hybrid element to work. This is technology that has been around for a decade plus now and it just doesn't add up that they could not seem to make it work with all the supposed development they put into it. It was also odd, at the Nissan's test debut at Sebring earlier in the year, which happened to coincide with the TransAm event weekend which I attended for meetings, Nissan was bivouacked at the east end of the paddock and anyone (regardless if they had media credential or not) was allowed right into their tent to inspect and photograph the car. Having worked for Audi in such situations (and Audi was there for this particular test as well but set up on the test track pit lane far away from prying eyes), they are extremely protective of their cars, especially what is under the bonnet and attending media photographers know the rules going in which the Audi PR personnel will relate in no uncertain terms. Nissan, on the other hand, could have cared less. It was like an open house so the approach was completely opposite to what we've dealt with over the years. In any case, perhaps eventually we'll get the real story of what was happening behind the scenes. BHW
Not sure if it's related or not but as Jalopnik reported earlier this year, the Nissan/DeltaWing/ Panoz relationship is now in the courts. What a gawd awful mess it has turned into, all for a car which has no chance of winning and will be nothing more than what it is right now. How Tomorrow's Race Car Got Bogged In Today's Lawsuits BHW
I don't think there's any correlation there, those legal issues were going on before the GTR LM program was even announced (first rumblings I heard of it was late 2013! and I'm no insider...)
Speaking as a friend of his, I think this thread can do without the ad hominem attacks on Ben Bowlby. Criticism (especially technically informed) of his DeltaWing and Nissan LMP1 concepts is legitimate and interesting, the personal cracks not so much. And it wouldn't hurt to remember that his last two Lola IndyCar designs helped drive Reynard out of business...
+1 Ben Bowlby: The early years that formed a maverick genius http://www.motorsport.com/wec/news/ben-bowlby-the-early-years-that-formed-a-maverick-genius-462095/ “I can’t think of anyone who didn’t have a very healthy level of respect for him.” Says Adam Airey, who as a design engineer worked under Bowlby from 1999 to 2002.
Barton you raise some very interesting observations surrounding the low level of 'secrecy' surrounding the Nismo LMP program. I'm sure that with time more information will come out and it will be interesting to see some of the more classified design details of this car. I'm no fanboy but Ben Bowlby is no fool and has the hardware to back it up. Both the DW and Nissan never got any real development time and money so it is very unfair to write those radical designs totally off. Let's not forget that a certain German racing car with the engine in totally the wrong place is easily the most successful GT car in history. (Oh boy here comes another internet argument )
Exactly my point. The Porsche 911 and its derivatives have benefited from constant development and testing for the last ... 55 years, although it is a concept that made other engineers laugh when it came out. Sticking to one concept and taking time to iron out all its flaws can result in a very competitive proposition. We may never know if the Delta Wing and the Nissan Nismo had any future in them, because both projects were more or less killed soon after birth.
The Nissan Delta Wing had me captivated after seeing it firsthand at Petit '12 and the race result it was able to produce. Was very cool to have been around it when getting rebuilt after the P-car incident & seeing the individual parts that made it up was pretty wild. Here's a pic I took in the wee hours of the morning during the rebuild of a crew member's shirt that said it all.... Image Unavailable, Please Login
I actually think the Nissan design had some promise and was very interesting technically. My issue is that closing up shop and laying everyone off for Christmas is typical of how Nissan racing has treated everyone I know who has worked with them or for them. Which has nothing to do with Mr Bowlby.
Anyone knows if aws are allowed at lemans? Always thought the Nismo should have had them in a skyline gtr kinda way. It would have made sense with its layout as it would have been much faster that way imo.
I couldn't agree more. I think it was sheer corporate cowardice on Nissan's part, and not for the first time with a Japanese OEM racing programme (I experienced it myself with Honda in 1999). I was referring to some negative personal remarks about Ben posted by others.
Interesting, in depth article on the Nissan/NISMO experiment on Daily Sports Car by Graham ‘GG’ Goodwin which is a good read. To wit, a couple of things stand out. As already mentioned, Nissan took to social media to promote the project with great effect. Goodwin also makes allusion to the lack of secrecy (if that's what we're calling it), "That sponsorship deal was done on the back of a push to improve fan engagement. Two wildly popular ‘Fan Forums’ were held at Silverstone and Le Mans, giving the punters more direct access than most of we journos get!" And, perhaps the final blow(s) came with the failure of the hybrid battery system and an FIA crash test, "The new battery based hybrid system, which in any case would not have run on the car until February 2016, is understood too have underperformed quite badly on the test bench and finally a second failed FIA crash test (the rear crash structure failed) would have necessitated a further redesign. That appears to have been the final straw." GG's article is the most comprehensive I've read on this story to date. It is well sorted and from the POV of an engaged journalist who'd been following the development from the beginning. From A Bellow To A Whimper, The Nissan GT-R LM Departs The Scene BHW
Nuvolari, yeah, when I think back about the open door policy that Nissan had at Sebring that particular day, it all just came off as very strange. Usually, when a new car comes along which features all sorts of technical advancements such as this Nissan, no one may get near the car which is usually kept under wraps behind the team tent and tarps draped over the especially sensitive bits. Having been a part of new car rollouts, in particular the Audi R8 in 2000, these are usually secure lock-down type situations with PR representatives watching photographers very closely to be sure they're not getting images of anything under the bonnet. This was completely not the case at Sebring, as GG notes in his articles, not only were reporters allowed near the Nissan (which is one thing) but the "punters" (UK media speak for fans) got to practically crawl all over the car as well. It struck me rather odd at the time and, while curious to see the car close up, I refrained from taking any pictures and after a couple of minutes opted to leave the tent. Since the TransAm event was taking place that weekend, there was some working media in attendance and a number of articles appeared the next day on the Internet. Once they got down to testing a day or two later, it was revealed that the Nissan had quit running, obviously a major failure of some sort. As is usual in these cases, we'd never find out what the issue was but Nissan was right up front about the fact that they'd experienced a major chassis issue, something to do with how an engine mount had failed which halted their progress. To admit such a failure these days is certainly not what we'd consider normal as journalists are usually left to speculate. Anyway, it was a curious project in many aspects. BHW
Karma finally caught up with the cheats at Nissan. From my earlier LeMans post a few months ago. "An excellent article in this month's Automobile magazine details how Nissan is trying steal the design. Some highlights: Bowlby's(at the time a Ganassi employee)design originally funded by Chip Ganassi When Indycar chose a more conventional design, Ganassi backed away and Panoz became the benefactor. Panoz used his connections with ACO to secure an experimental spot for the car at LeMans Once accepted, they began to look for a major manufacturer to supply the engine and sponsorship Dan Gurney and AAR built the car. Turned down by Chevy and Mazda, Nissan indicated mild interest that blossomed when the car did as advertised during testing. Once it began to draw attention and demonstrated speed and economy, Nissan aggressively associated itself with the project. Ironically, despite the massive NISSAN lettering on the side, the only Nissan part was a fuel injection throttle body. The actual engine was a Chevrolet supplied by Mallock. Once proof of concept was sound, Nissan hired Bowlby as Director of Motorsport Innovation. And announced their revolutionary ZEOD RC(that looked nearly identical to the Delta Wing. Nissan also weaseled out of paying their promised 2 million sponsorship, brought out a street legal version concept(again similar to Panoz's plans), was caught in a number of questionable decisions and attempts at hiding their nonsense. The battle is now in the courts. So, yes, I hope the Nissan effort fails miserably." This battle is still in the courts. The negative publicity from the car, the effort and the bad PR lawsuits were so damaging, I'll bet it jeopardized their entire motorsports program. The alleged mass firings by email before the holidays would be the scumbag cherry on top of this entire **** sundae.
That maybe just coincidence . I wouldn't read too much into that, personally. Do you know a good time to give someone the sack ?
