NISSAN LMP1...were they right?

NISSAN LMP1...were they right?

Author
Discussion

entropy

5,405 posts

202 months

Monday 15th June 2015
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I'm not fussed. It's a prototype and st happens, that's racing; expensive test session literally and metaphorically.

If it was privateer team they would have had an consolatory pat on the back but Nissan is a massive manufacturer with lots of money, PR, hype thrown into the project so the fall out will be bigger much like McLaren/Honda.

Scuffers

20,887 posts

273 months

Monday 15th June 2015
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That's a good point, with the current regs the budget required pretty much excludes any privateers.

MissChief

7,095 posts

167 months

Tuesday 16th June 2015
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http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/Results/05_2015/0... Best times through Timing Loop 6, Loop 7, Porsche Curves, and Ford Chicane. Nissan appears way off the pace in this spots.

http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/Results/05_2015/0... Maximum speed through the speed trap before the 1st Mulsannes Chicane. Nissan was on pace with the Toyotas, but slower than the Porsches and Audis.

http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/Results/05_2015/0... If the Nissan had the best lap based on their conbined sectors, they could have set a 3:35 lap, but would have still be the slowest LMP1 car. They were 23rd fastest in Sector 1 (Start to Tertre Rouge), 11th fastest in Sector 2 (Mulsanne) and 19th fastest in Sector 3 (Mulsanne Corner to Finish)

Considering they were as much as 3-400 HP down without their Hybrid systems yet were only 7kph down on the Audi's top speed (338 Vs. 345) shows just how slippery they are and how their aero performance dominates their straight line speed. If they could lay down the traction in the way they expected to be able to (with 4WD, Hybrid to the back wheels or front wheels along with the ICE or even both) then they would have been right up there. The fact that all the Hybrid gubbins was in place and couldn't be removed, effectively making it ballast, shows me that if/when they can get it all working they'll be wicked fast.

Stu R

21,410 posts

214 months

Tuesday 16th June 2015
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It seems like a good concept that just needs the wick turning up and the electrical systems functioning.

What it's appetite for front brakes and tyres will be like at full tilt, I dread to think, but the pace I can see being there.

MissChief

7,095 posts

167 months

Tuesday 16th June 2015
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If they can sort the braking out with the Hybrid system being charged from the rear brakes it should allow them to turn the bias back so the fronts have an easier time. This should also ease the load on the front wheels as more power can be sent to the back wheels.

joema

2,644 posts

178 months

Tuesday 16th June 2015
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We're talking about them right? So it's not a wasted effort.

That lack of hybrid unit really cost them. They were getting on the power out of the corner a good few car lengths behind the other cars including the GT's. They had to avoid kerbs as well.

It makes you think that any data they have is pretty pointless but the crew gets experience so not all lost.

The tyres were also developed for the final spec of the car with hybrid.

I wonder how much the other LMP's would be affected by no hybrid though? I guess less as the engine is in the middle so traction isnt such an issue.

Look forward to next year.


Quartz Ninja

15 posts

106 months

Wednesday 17th June 2015
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Were they right? So far, no…

It does make me laugh that I’ve seen it called ‘innovative’ and ‘revolutionary’. They can call it that, perhaps, if it manages to win the event in the next 2 years. At the moment it’s looking slow, fragile and quite frankly, stupid. I know they’ve said they been pushed for time this year but I’m sure they would have been planning for this project for quite a while, given its leftfield nature…

Tbh, I don’t really get the concept. I could understand a semi-4WD system, if the harvesting/KERS unit was in the front and delivered its power to the front, with a mid-engined petrol motor delivering its power to the back wheels; or perhaps a front engine car with RWD, with the KERS system also at the front, delivering its power there. But having a front-engined/FWD system seems silly. Even when the hybrid system works, surely the car is still going to handle like a pig on casters and is going to have some pretty crazy braking distances if it has a significantly higher top speed than it has now.

IMHO, Nissan Motorsport have been acting like a bunch of hipsters in the past 3 seasons at Le Mans supporting/building race cars (The DildoWing, The DeltaWing, ZEOD and LMP1 GT-R) that are ‘ironically’ slow. They seem scared to take on the big boys like Audi, Porsche and Toyota. I don’t get the PR strategy of building completely wacky cars that only gain attention for their novelty value but not their class-competing performance.

Perhaps I should give them the benefit-of-the-doubt as it's a 3 year project but I remain unconvinced, for now...

ajprice

27,322 posts

195 months

Wednesday 17th June 2015
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I think they were right. Treat Le Mans and the rest of this year as a public test session, get data (even without the hybrid parts working). As stated above, they are in the ball park for top speed just with the engine power, once the hybrid is sorted next year, maybe with a rev. B car after what they have learned this year, and they could be right up there next year. Same deal as McLaren Honda F1, get things working and get data this year, come back stronger next year.

rallycross

12,747 posts

236 months

Wednesday 17th June 2015
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I watched a few hours of it live on Eurosport and didn't even notice there was a Nissan In the race.

SpeedMattersNot

4,506 posts

195 months

Wednesday 17th June 2015
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MissChief said:
Interesting stuff
Sorry if it's obvious, but where do you retrieve this data from the FIA WEC website?

MissChief

7,095 posts

167 months

Wednesday 17th June 2015
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SpeedMattersNot said:
MissChief said:
Interesting stuff
Sorry if it's obvious, but where do you retrieve this data from the FIA WEC website?
I'm not sure, I borrowed it from a friend on another forum. smile

RobGT81

5,227 posts

185 months

Thursday 18th June 2015
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Quartz Ninja said:
Perhaps I should give them the benefit-of-the-doubt as it's a 3 year project but I remain unconvinced, for now...
It's a 2 year project, I think?

Asterix

24,438 posts

227 months

Thursday 18th June 2015
quotequote all
I'd seen the promo stuff and was hugely skeptical before the race. Nothing that happened has changed my mind.

The aero benefit is one thing but the rest of the engineering has flaws, even if the hybrid system works flawlessly.

As said, it seems as if they were doing 'different' to be different, not because it had obvious merit or because someone else had missed something key.

It was interesting that Audi had problems with their braking system towards the end but fell back onto a redundancy that didn't affect the times - Nissan doesn't seem to have anything.

VladD

7,853 posts

264 months

Thursday 18th June 2015
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I'm glad they were there, because they were trying out a new concept. No one expected them to do much as it was their first race, but they will have learnt a lot from the amount of running that they did. I don't think they had much to lose as expectations were low. I give them credit for being brave enough to run with an unfinished car, which more than makes up for the poor result. If they'd turned up with a "normal" rwd mid engined car, then it would be a different story.

As has been mentioned before though:

1) The adverts were making claims that the car couldn't deliver on, so they were a bad idea.

2) It's a shame for the teams that missed out on participating because Nissan were there.

Vocal Minority

8,582 posts

151 months

Thursday 18th June 2015
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Nissan had two options

1). They could use Le Mans as a test bed. Never hide from the fact it was a test bed. Test in public and roll with the inevitable punches. The fact of the matter is both Toyota and Porsche had a year more quiet(ish) development under their belts prior to their 'first years' (at least that is what Toyota wanted, the 2012 entry was almost a favour to the organisers). It was always going to be rocky.

2). They could give it a bunch of hubris, talk up the revolution and spend time in private getting it working right before making a big song and dance arrival at Le Mans in 2016 or even 2017.

If they had done JUST 1 or JUST 2. It would have been the right choice.

Ultimately the WRONG choice was to give it the Billy Big Mouth and then turn up with a prototype that was still far from working properly and then set itself on fire.

Without the mass PR they may have gotten away with it...but ultimately I think they were probably wrong to do it.

stuckmojo

2,955 posts

187 months

Friday 19th June 2015
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Quartz Ninja said:
Were they right? So far, no…

It does make me laugh that I’ve seen it called ‘innovative’ and ‘revolutionary’. They can call it that, perhaps, if it manages to win the event in the next 2 years. At the moment it’s looking slow, fragile and quite frankly, stupid. I know they’ve said they been pushed for time this year but I’m sure they would have been planning for this project for quite a while, given its leftfield nature…

Tbh, I don’t really get the concept. I could understand a semi-4WD system, if the harvesting/KERS unit was in the front and delivered its power to the front, with a mid-engined petrol motor delivering its power to the back wheels; or perhaps a front engine car with RWD, with the KERS system also at the front, delivering its power there. But having a front-engined/FWD system seems silly. Even when the hybrid system works, surely the car is still going to handle like a pig on casters and is going to have some pretty crazy braking distances if it has a significantly higher top speed than it has now.

IMHO, Nissan Motorsport have been acting like a bunch of hipsters in the past 3 seasons at Le Mans supporting/building race cars (The DildoWing, The DeltaWing, ZEOD and LMP1 GT-R) that are ‘ironically’ slow. They seem scared to take on the big boys like Audi, Porsche and Toyota. I don’t get the PR strategy of building completely wacky cars that only gain attention for their novelty value but not their class-competing performance.

Perhaps I should give them the benefit-of-the-doubt as it's a 3 year project but I remain unconvinced, for now...
Agree 100% with you. It's a marketing exercise.

rubystone

11,252 posts

258 months

Friday 19th June 2015
quotequote all
I've just read a great book ' The Emperor's New Clothes'.

Ahonen

5,015 posts

278 months

Saturday 20th June 2015
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Essentially they shouldn't have entered this year's race. When Porsche announced its return it was two years before the car, which was a conventional design in racing car terms, ran at LM. It was over a year until it tested - and they were quite a long way advanced with much of the design before anything was publicly announced and had already employed a lot of ex-BMW F1 staff.

Nissan were too public and too confident. They should have been much, much more humble and respectful of the huge challenge they faced and not claimed to be coming to win it. Even when it was looking very bad they still claimed that they'd comfortably outpace the P2 cars, when they should have been staying silent.

The concept itself remains interesting and for the unique requirements of the LM circuit I think the final version may actually be pretty good. The straight line speed, for a car that simply cannot get off the corners at all and has only a little more power than an LMP2 car, is stunningly quick and with traction from the rear and a working hybrid system it will be good between Tertre Rouge and Arnage. I remain very doubtful about the rest of the WEC season though - can you imagine what it would be like through Luffield at Silverstone or round Bahrain? Awful. I strongly suspect that it won't turn up anywhere until it has hybrid power to the rear wheels, because at some tracks it may be slower than a GT car: anyone who saw the GT cars pulling out to re-pass it on the exit of Arnage or the Ford Chicane can see that. The car that ran at LM was so hugely, massively compromised in so many ways that it really shouldn't have been on the track. I guess there was a massive amount of pressure from on high to actually turn up and race, because surely the engineers would have lobbied to stay at home and get the car working. And this, fundamentally, boils down to Nissan being too publicly confident early on.

Edited by Ahonen on Saturday 20th June 09:12

entropy

5,405 posts

202 months

Saturday 20th June 2015
quotequote all
Quartz Ninja said:
Were they right? So far, no…

It does make me laugh that I’ve seen it called ‘innovative’ and ‘revolutionary’. They can call it that, perhaps, if it manages to win the event in the next 2 years. At the moment it’s looking slow, fragile and quite frankly, stupid. I know they’ve said they been pushed for time this year but I’m sure they would have been planning for this project for quite a while, given its leftfield nature…

Tbh, I don’t really get the concept. I could understand a semi-4WD system, if the harvesting/KERS unit was in the front and delivered its power to the front, with a mid-engined petrol motor delivering its power to the back wheels; or perhaps a front engine car with RWD, with the KERS system also at the front, delivering its power there. But having a front-engined/FWD system seems silly. Even when the hybrid system works, surely the car is still going to handle like a pig on casters and is going to have some pretty crazy braking distances if it has a significantly higher top speed than it has now.

IMHO, Nissan Motorsport have been acting like a bunch of hipsters in the past 3 seasons at Le Mans supporting/building race cars (The DildoWing, The DeltaWing, ZEOD and LMP1 GT-R) that are ‘ironically’ slow. They seem scared to take on the big boys like Audi, Porsche and Toyota. I don’t get the PR strategy of building completely wacky cars that only gain attention for their novelty value but not their class-competing performance.

Perhaps I should give them the benefit-of-the-doubt as it's a 3 year project but I remain unconvinced, for now...
Nissan deserves a bit of credit of doing something different when motorsport has become stale and fits into a box eg. wings, grouds effect and ever tightening rules.

I've been impressed by DW. It can run with P2 cars without fixed wings. The problem its so unique that it doesn't fit into a box ie. is it a P2 car, P1? have its own class?

Regardless if the GTR-LM concept ends up working or not doesn't matter with me. At least they had a go and generated interest and got people talking - whether positive or negative - is only a good thing for the sport as a whole.



Scuffers

20,887 posts

273 months

Saturday 20th June 2015
quotequote all
entropy said:
Nissan deserves a bit of credit of doing something different when motorsport has become stale and fits into a box eg. wings, grouds effect and ever tightening rules.

I've been impressed by DW. It can run with P2 cars without fixed wings. The problem its so unique that it doesn't fit into a box ie. is it a P2 car, P1? have its own class?

Regardless if the GTR-LM concept ends up working or not doesn't matter with me. At least they had a go and generated interest and got people talking - whether positive or negative - is only a good thing for the sport as a whole.
disagree...

it's a marketing lead look at me project that kept 3 serious runners off the grid.