Nissan gets serious about motorsports with its new LMP2 racer making a Sebring debut.
Nissan has a long and rich history in sports car racing that dates back to 1966. Here in America, they raced the little Datsun 510 sedan, the famous 240 Z and its successors, and a raft of Nissan-powered sports prototypes that competed in IMSA GTP prototype and Group C racing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Nissan came roaring back to prototype racing at the 2011 12 Hours of Sebring — where it won overall victories in 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1994 — as an engine supplier to the French Signatech team racing in the LMP2 class for prototypes will small engines. Signatech’s campaign was led by French drivers Soheil Ayari and Franck Mailleux and 25-year-old newcomer Lucas Ordoñez, who got the seat by playing PlayStation 360 GT5 against all comers in the Nissan PlayStation GT Academy competition in 2008 — and training in real cars ever since.
“Nissan is excited to see our new partnership with Signature kick off and we look forward to a very successful partnership with the team,” said Jon Brancheau, vice-president for marketing at Nissan. “I know our customers, fans and dealers will be following our progress at Sebring and will be anticipating our return to the Le Mans 24 hours.”
The Signatech Nissan racing team will contest the entire 2011 season of the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup (ILMC) series. The 7-race schedule includes Sebring, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the 1000 Km of Spa-Francorchamps and a return to U.S. soil for the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta on Saturday, October 1, 2011, followed by the season-ending event in China.
Infiniti will partner with F1 champion Red Bull Racing.
“We are delighted to team up with such an innovative car manufacturer,” said Philippe Sinault, the CEO of Signature Group. “Nissan’s engine expertise will be crucial to the overall performance of the car, and we are sure this partnership will be highly successful.”
The Signatech Nissan team uses a 4.5-liter V-8 racing engine derived from the powerplant used in the Infiniti M45 luxury sedan and in Japanese SuperGT competition, making 450 horsepower at 8000 rpm. The chassis is a French-built Oreca single-seater prototype.
The team’s first outing at the 12 Hours of Sebring consisted of hours of testing and tuning the car early in the week, and then qualifying on the LMP2 pole first time out against a field of well-financed competition. During the grueling half-day of racing, the Signatech Nissan led for a time and was seldom out of second place, and finished in second place at 10:30 PM Sunday night.
The back story here is that Carlos Tavares, the Portuguese president of Nissan Americas, has been a racer himself since 1980, with experience in a variety of different series. He was a rally driver for nearly a decade, ran touring cars in the French championship, raced in Formula 3, and the Nissan World Series as well. In all, he has 14 podium finishes in 81 races since 1997.
Tavares currently races in the Big Open Single Seaters (BOSS) GP series in Europe, in a Formula One-style Nissan-powered Dallara open-wheel car that weighs only 1320 pounds but carries a 620-horsepower 3.4-liter Nissan V-6 engine.
The idea of returning to prototype racing, where real innovation happens, only bubbled up in October last year as a means of relating to customers and fans who are interested in both technology and racing, according to Tavares. Tavares knew of the Signature Group/Signatech racing organization from his own experience, and by Christmas, the deal was done, and the car was built and finished a few weeks before Sebring and shipped over here. We won’t see it again on these shores until the 10-hour Petit Le Mans race, but if their rookie start is any indication, they’re going to be tough.
Incidentally, Nissan has other big motor sports plans. The Japanese maker’s luxury arm, Infiniti, recently pulled off a coup by inking a deal with the Red Bull Formula One team — last year’s big F1 winner. The deal puts the Nissan logo out in front of 550 million fans, worldwide.
“Over the mid-term, Infiniti will be simultaneously expanding its global presence and broadening its product range,” explained Senior Vice President Andy Palmer. “Given these twin ambitions, it is clear that Formula One offers us an unrivalled global communications platform.” (Click Here for more on Infiniti’s Formula One program.)