The moment has arrived and on June 13 at 1500 hours, three Nissan GT-R LM NISMOs will start the greatest race in the world, marking Nissan's return to the premier LM P1 class at the Le Mans 24 Hours. Three radical front-engine, front-wheel-drive Nissan GT-R LM NISMOs will compete at Le Mans with an international squad of drivers taken from the worlds of Formula One, sportscar racing and Nissan's own GT Academy. The #23 Nissan will be raced by ex-F1 star Max Chilton (GB), GT Academy winner and GP3 racer Jann Mardenborough (GB) and sportscar supremo Olivier Pla (FRA). “It's great to be part of a works team that has come to Le Mans with such a radical concept design,” said Chilton. “I think people are giving us credit for trying it and I think with time we can show that people maybe haven't always been doing Le Mans in the right way. The torque is outstanding. More than any other racing car I've driven. I don't think you have to drive it as differently from rear-wheel drive as I expected, but you have to think about your driving in more detail.” In the #22 Nissan is the longest-standing NISMO racer of them all Michael Krumm (GER), LM P2 Le Mans winner Harry Tincknell (GB) and Nissan GT ace Alex Buncombe (GB). “I've raced for Nissan NISMO for 16 years now and I was part of the team in the top class at Le Mans in 1998 and 1999 and they were very enjoyable early years with Nissan,” said Krumm. “To now have the opportunity to come back to complete our unfinished business (we retired in 1999) means a lot. To help develop a new car and be part of the race squad is a big honor for me. That said I thought the team was mad until I saw the simulations and had it all explained to me by Ben (Bowlby) and Ricardo (Divila). From that moment I was extremely excited about the concept. The most impressive thing to me was how good the traction was in a straight line and aerodynamics – the car is very low drag so it just goes and goes and goes! I love the engine. It is a really nice turbo engine with amazing torque. We're going to be quicker and slower than other cars at different parts of the circuit so it's going to be interesting. I think the FWD will show some serious advantages if it is wet at Le Mans.” The #21 Nissan will only race at Le Mans and it has been given a very special livery to celebrate the Nissan R90CK that blasted its way to pole position at Le Mans 25 years ago. The #21 car is resplendent in a red, white and blue livery that has already proved a huge hit with racing fans. Tasked with racing the already iconic car are current Super GT Champion Tsugio Matsuda (JAP), the first GT Academy winner and now Super GT500 racer Lucas Ordonez (ESP) and the first winner of GT Academy Russia, Mark Shulzhitskiy (RUS). “It's great to see Nissan still pushing in a different direction to the other teams with the GT-R LM NISMO,” said Ordonez. “It's good for the fans and good for the sport. Performance-wise the car is really strong on engine power and top speed. It's different to drive, which makes you work hard on understanding the car and adapting what you know to suit it, but all of us (drivers) are working together to get the best from the car and ourselves.” The Nissan GT-R LM NISMO is still at an early stage of its development, having first hit the track in November 2014. With every test comes progress and this was also the case at last weekend's official Le Mans Test Day. This was the public debut for Nissan's LM P1 car and the three GT-R LM NISMOs completed over 1500kms of running, gathering precious data to aid the development of the car. The three Nissan GT-R LM NISMOs will be back on track at Le Mans on Wednesday 10 June for the 16:00hrs free practice session. Qualifying for Le Mans takes place across three sessions on Wednesday and Thursday evenings before the 83rd running of the Le Mans 24 Hours gets underway on June 13. With Nissan powered cars taking the LM P2 class victory at Le Mans three times in the last four years it is no surprise that the NISMO-tuned Nissan VK45DE V8 engine is still the power plant of choice for the LM P2 teams. 14 of the 19 LM P2 cars at Le Mans are powered by Nissan. The three Nissan GT-R LM NISMOs with their bespoke V6 twin-turbo engines and 30% of the entire Le Mans grid is powered by Nissan. — SG
