F1 Fanatic

Unless you’ve been living under a rock of late, you will know as well as I do that one of the big interest stories at Le Mans this year was the Nissan DeltaWing. And while its appearance was cruelly cut short to just seventy-five laps, the level of attention it garnered makes me wonder what the future holds for the DeltaWing. It was given a one-off entry to Le Mans this year, but next year, Garage 56 will be occupied by the GreenGT, and the 2014 Le Mans regulations don’t really allow for designs like the DeltaWing. Nevertheless, I don’t think it deserves to simply be parked.

So what should happen with the DeltaWing? Should it expand out to a series of its own? Should the rules of an existing series be tweaked to allow it to run? Or should it serve as the inspiration for an entire category, where experimental designs are not simply encouraged, but mandatory?

I think they could make something of an entire series out of it, promoting radical designs and brand-new technologies with virtually no rules except the maximum dimensions of the car, inlet restrictor, a standarised cockpit and a budget cap for development. But it needs a new name – “Garage 56″ doesn’t sound right. Maybe the XLMS, or Experimental Le Mans Series.

When I first saw the DeltaWing there was one at an Indycar race as a possible option for that series. I would love to see it be used in F1 in the future, it certainly deserves a permanent position in motorsport today.

I can’t think what place it has. An experimental series could be very costly, and the difficulty would be promoting actual innovation and not focusing on a win-at-all costs mentality, otherwise all the designs will converge to what is quickest in order to win.

Like many people I would like to see it get another shot in a WEC event so we can see the true pace of the car against the rest of them. Would also be good to see how the idea fares outwith Le Mans and on a more traditional track like Silverstone or Fuji.

Into the future, a spec series would probably be the only real option, or it might have to remain as a one-hit wonder whose legacy goes into future motorsports development, which was, after all, is the team’s aim.

That’s probbably the best option, it could replace the LMPC Oreca. The LMPC class, even when it was the old “Formula Le Mans” Class, seems a bit unecessary to me. The cars resemble LMP2 cars and with a strong turn out in LMP1 and LMP2 I’m not sure a third prototype class is necessary. The performance difference needed to justify a third tier of prototype would probably make the third tier slower than the GT Pro’s….so what exactly is the point.

Having the Deltawing slot in there, with freedom as to the engines the teams running the chassis can use (seeing as the Deltawing isn’t a Nissan project, just a project which uses Nissan power) between the LMP’s and the GT’s makes sense to me. It is also a cool looking thing, it looked good out on the track and added something different to the race.

I don’t think it has proven enough to be considered for anything like a new series.
It didn’t seem that fast if you consider that it is just 150 hp short of the GTE pro cars, but less then half the weight and a lower CoG.
Is it really better? I don’t think it is. It seems like they made something different for the sake of being different, not because it was really better.
It is more efficient, but making a car shaped like that wont work in the car industry anyway.
It was fun while it lasted, and a few more entries in WEC wouldn’t be a bad idea, but I don’t think it deserves anything beyond that.

I’m thinking along the same lines as @Mads. It is interesting, but unless it competes as part of an experimental series I don’t see a place for it. I don’t see any basis in it becoming a spec chassis unless Nissan did it as a completely separate spec-series off their own back.