The Le Mans organizing body was likely very curious to see what Ben Bowlby's DeltaWing could do, as the design is a car of "halves": It has half of the drag, half of the weight and half of the power of a conventional design—which Bowlby projected would consume half the fuel, half the brakes and half the amount of tires. This was good enough to get Nissan interested, and they committed to providing the engine.
"As motor racing rulebooks have become tighter over time, racing cars look more and more similar and the technology used has had less and less relevance to road car development," said Andy Palmer, Nissan Motor Co.'s Executive Vice President, after sealing the partnership. "Nissan DeltaWing aims to change that and we were an obvious choice to become part of the project."
They subsequently released a sexy video discussing the collaboration. I dig Bowlby's line about "Guilt-free high-performance motoring:"
On race day, the DeltaWing ran well for the first six hours—before tragedy struck, literally. On lap 75, Toyota driver Kazuki Nakajima knocked the DeltaWing into a wall:
To the untrained eye the knock-out appeared pretty blatant, but as you heard in the video, the announcers attribute it to an unintended consequence of Bowlby's wing-less design: The DeltaWing, the announcers claim, is difficult for other drivers to see. Other media outlets, however, called the contact "reckless" and Nakajima later apologized.
As light as the contact appeared, it was disastrous for the DeltaWing team. As reported by Automobile,
Damage was so extensive that DeltaWing driver Satoshi Motoyama was unable to make it back to pit road (crew members can't work on the car outside the pits). Before the incident, the car was running strongly enough to have finished well against the most technically sophisticated prototypes of this era.
The DeltaWing team was out of the race. Bowlby looked on the bright side: "The car did what we had all hoped it would do," he said, post-race. "It ran at the pace the [Le Mans organizing body] had asked us to run. And believe me, there's a little bit of headroom: we can go quite a bit faster."
Undeterred, they returned to the U.S. and rebuilt the car. They subsequently gained approval to run it again, this time in the 1,000-mile Petit Le Mans race at Road Atlanta, where the DeltaWing made its American debut last weekend.This time they got the tragedy out of the way early, during a pre-race practice run last Wednesday. A Porsche clipped the DeltaWing at speed, and this is what happened:
Viewed at regular speed, the impact again looks pretty blatant, and you can see DeltaWing driver Gunnar Jeannette making a WTF, WTF gesture at the Porsche driver after the crash. Luckily, despite how terrifying the upside-down part looked in slow-motion, Jeannette was not injured.
Now the team had just two days and change to rebuild the car before the race on Saturday. Here, courtesy of a GoPro (which also recorded the in-car crash view), is a couple days' worth of ass-busting work compressed into two minutes:
By Saturday the car was ready, and the remaining obstacles were bureaucratic: Running in the "Unclassified" category, the DeltaWing was forced to start at the back of the pack. Furthermore, during the race, they lost laps on technicalities having nothing to do with the the team or car's performance; sanctioned cars are allowed to "unlap" themselves during safety-issue slowdowns, whereas the DeltaWing was afforded no such luxuries. Despite that, here's what they were able to pull off:
Fifth place, out of a field of 42, is nothing to scoff at. Absent the bureaucratic hurdles, it's not difficult to imagine the team placing in the top three.
"We've shown everyone in motorsport that the car is really strong and fast," said Lucas Ordonez, the other DeltaWing driver. "We're here with a new concept of half the weight, half the power and half the aerodynamic drag - but with pace that is very comparable to the [other] cars."
Prior to the first Le Mans race, some expressed scepticism that the DeltaWing would be competitive with a 1.6-liter engine that's half the size of what some competitors' powerplants. Bowlby was interviewed by Racecar Engineering and explained:
You have to have extraordinary performance but you also need to do it with the technology that the auto industry is trying to focus on. So DeltaWing was born out us asking ourselves how we could use one of these small engines to go just as fast and consequently use less fuel, fewer tyres and so on. Efficiency needed to be the fundamental overt element of the car. It's what I've done all my career; making my cars more efficient from a mass standpoint and from an aerodynamic standpoint than my rivals. DeltaWing was what I came up with as an answer to how to go just as fast on less.
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Comments
It doesn't have to look like that.
Imagine applying it's concepts to a more conventional-looking design. Instead of high-downforce monstrosities, smooth, low-drag creations like what were common in the early 70s when we knew more about slipping THROUGH the air than using it to suck the cars to the ground.
Imagine a Porsche 917 built using the same concepts behind the Delta Wing; Lightweight modern construction, low drag body, and ground effects to suck it to the ground. The latter of which would be amazingly more effective on a car like that.
The 917 is considered one of the most gorgeous cars in the world and was the epitome of smooth-airflow design - it wasn't long after the 917 that downforce became the dominant goal of racecar design. Imagine making such car with the knowledge of airflow we have today, combining modern knowledge with the gorgeous curves that allow easier penetration of the air.
THAT is the potential future of the Delta Wing, and it most definitely is NOT a dildo with a vertical stabilizer.
I would add that it appears the driver of the Porsche had the situation of his left wheels being of the tarmac and wanting to move right to accelerate out of the corner. If he or she looks right as I believe happened they see the front end of the Deltawing significantly farther away then its rear end, and they move into the space they think they have. Then the shape of the Deltawing comes into play and it rolls over like a three wheeled vehicle if it gets bumped on the hip where a wider front end would more likely stay on the ground and slide or spin out. A normal width front end might flip but I believe the delta wing has much more of a chance from contact on the extended rear wheel as seen in the video. The leverage is increased because of the lack of any surface to contact in the midsection, all the force goes through the back corner and in this case it is to stiff to collapse and instead rotates up and over to dissipate the initial contact.
So the front end width deceives other drivers into making unintended contact, and the lack of front end stance width makes it flip.
Not to say I am not totally impressed, but they need to throw a light wing or just neutral lift bar on the front to simulate its total width for other drivers to judge there distance abreast with a quick glance at speed. It could be flexible so they can bump it without any damage or effect on handling, but still tells the drivers exactly how far that rear hip is sticking out.
While I fully commend the new approach he has taken. I am still frustrated to the core with this design. The author refers to cars "knocking out" the delta wing. The announcers step to the driver's defense correctly. In the daytime the car is a nightmare to pass for a number of reasons, corner entry and exits are different than the regular cars. Adding on to the fact that the widths differ and an all black car does not show any distinction in coloration between the front and rear widths, knowing how much car is there, especially while being passed is particularly difficult. Add that tracks with multiple classes of cars and driver experience levels, and you have a recipe for disaster on a weekly basis. I know the design was originally intended for a single make series (IndyCar) which would've brought in it's own series of issues (side by side oval racing with a car where neither driver could actually see the full width of his own car!) It's not a great idea for actual circuit racing (my opinion).
I however fully applaud Ben for the efficiency of the design. The cleverness to generate inherent downforce more by mechanical grip and slipperiness is amazing. As a solo/track day car I think it would be an invigorating car to run. I however can't see it's adoption beyond either a single make series or some serious adjustments in terms of driver etiquette/safety to make pack racing, passing, and overtaking safer for all concerned.
As for the run in with the Great Kazoo at Le Mans. Kazuki is a great driver who simply felt bad for making an honest mistake. Hhe was confronted with the on track anomaly at full speed, he may not have ever interacted with that car on circuit till then.
Last, if you're worried for Nissan, don't,, they have a RedBull inifinti driven by Sebastien Vettel ranked #1 for the championship in Formula 1 right now.