^you musnt have had your coffee yet. That feed was live for the GTR LMs for the duration of the race. I had it cued up all night. Too bad you missed it!

 

Final results... All 3 DNF.

 

I will say though, out of all the different types of racing. LeMans is the last type of racing that allows crazy and different race cars like this. Not in NASCAR, Indy or F1 is this type of stuff allowed. My hats off to Nissan for doing something different.

 

I watched alot of the race via a webstream from the FoxGo app displayed on AppleTV

I felt cheated by NISMO thinking they were ready and going to be competitive, as soon as the race started they said both cars had no hybrid power and were in no way going to compete

 

Some pretty interesting and incendiary commentary from an unnamed German team exec going on in this article:

http://www.roadandtrack.com/motorspo...od-for-racing/

A little more balanced article, but closes with their plans to compete in the 6-hours of Nurburgring:

http://www.motorsport.com/lemans/new...ns-for-nissan/

 

That first article really explains it, joke program for marketing purposes

 

I'm not so sure I would classify it as a joke, but only on one condition. If they come back next year with an improved version then I would say its true developement and I'm all for that.

 

The winning team (Porsche) won with a 2-liter 4-cyl turbo hybrid. That is not the fodder of automotive journalistic legend. A radically unconventional aerod 6-cyl turbo hybrid FWD experiment is much easier to turn into an exciting story.

Though I think any team that invests that much money into a program deserves to exploit all the marketing potential they can. Same for every single team on the grid.

He is just mad because he feels Nissan is stealing too much of the limelight from the incumbent heavy hitters.

 

The Nissan LMP-1 GT-R was a bold statement for trying something different in racing, but ultimately unsuccessful. Is that enough to justify a multi-million dollar investment? Only time will tell. Given additional R&D, this car could close the speed differential to Audi, Porsche and Toyota, but there are no guarantees. I'll be watching with interest to see if Nissan makes the commitment to continue the LMP-1 effort into the future.

Also, watching the Austrian F1 race today saw another famed Japanese marque having huge difficulties. McLaren Honda finished last and second to last and have been some of the slowest F1 runners around in the first season with this new KERS-based formula. Ah, but how the mighty have fallen...

 

After withdrawing from the World Endurance Championship (WEC) and spending the last half of 2015 testing, we now know where Nissan stands with their 2016 LeMans program. It's dead, and the team disbanded just a few days before Christmas. What a gift, eh?

http://nissannews.com/en-US/nissan/u...-2016-wec-lmp1

While every racing team experiences some degree of failure, there's not many that can match this program on the misery scale. Nissan launched an innovative concept and essentially promised to "make no friends" while kickin' butts. What they got was a race effort that never lived up to all the hype and millions of dollars, euros and yen up in smoke. Finishing DFL (or near it) with a three car team and obviously NOT getting encouraging results from testing meant the team couldn't be assured of being back in the same position in 2016 even if it committed millions to race again. The Nissan Senior VP responsible for pushing the LMP1 program through was jettisoned from the company earlier this fall, so there was fallout from a failure of this magnitude. Most of the rest of the LMP1 effort was made up of contracted personnel, who are now searching for work. As an unabashed Nissan fan, it's difficult to look upon such a smoldering wreckage, as the PR knife cuts in both directions.

 

I saw that today. Kinda bums me out. I was really hoping they'd get it together and maybe give Porsche, Audi, and Toyota a run for their money some day.

They are also pulling out of IMSA which stinks as well. I always liked watching the IMSA races as their cars looked like mine (a little anyways).

http://www.racer.com/imsa/item/12448...ms-series-exit

 

Nissan might give world sportscar racing a go again, someday. For now, the Nissan/Renault alliance has just bought the Lotus F1 team and needs all the racing cash it can generate to get back to the head of that pack. But you can never recover the millions that were expended on this LMP1 project over the past few years. If only a fraction of that budget were spent on contingency programs throughout the world, Nissan would have been better served.

 

thanks for the update.. i guess..

I was wondering, since the cut IMSA what would happen to this. Guess that means more time to focus on my own car and driving.. was nice to have someone to root for in IMSA for sure.. I think I'll still be a big fan of Doran for their work with the 370s

DeltaWing cut too? probably since it was part of IMSA.. though I cared the least for that little project

 

Hate to break it to you, but Nissan cut its ties to DeltaWing almost two years ago. Elan technologies even sued Nissan for what they saw as copyright infringement, although who knows where that lawsuit has gone.

I've been a fan of Doran racing since they ran the Ferrari 333SP almost 13 years ago. They did stellar work on the 370Z and it's unfortunate Nissan had their racing budget slashed by NNA management. I wonder if Doran will just sell its IMSA cars outright, or try parting them out.

 

I heard or read somewhere that Doran might run one of the 370Zs this year.. even without Nissan support in IMSA. Hope so.

 

Not sure if that's an option. Each car maker has to pay IMSA for the right to be included in their competition. Nissan does not have the race budget to pay for this in 2016. It's a shame...