Nissan GT-R LM Nismo (Le Mans 2015) - Genius or Disaster? - Technical Analysis

Let's take a closer look at the unique design of the Nissan GT-R LM Nismo!
Was it a genius design or just a total desaster?

How did they come up with the idea?
What caused the issues in this project?
How did they try to adapt the car?
And which potential could we see?

#24hlemans #24h #lemans #lemans24 #lemans24hours #nissan #lmp1

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Marshall Pruett

[HATECELL]

If I had a dollar for every good idea ruined by management pushing the engineers to cut corners and insist on releasing before it is ready I'd launch my own Le Mans entry

[Kefuddle]

My favourite ever LM car. The true spirit of Le Mans. Shame Nissan abandoned the project. They were on the cusp of legendary.

[stuntvist]

Had they started off with an electric hybrid system sending power to the rear they could've had a winning concept. Having some power at the rear would've helped with slow-medium speed turns, acceleration onto the straight, and probably would've helped put some more load on the rear tyres to get more use out of them. Alternatively they could've leveraged the hybrid system to run a higher downforce setup without losing top speed.

Just a shame they killed the project so fast, but I guess all Nissan has cared for in the past 2 decades is cutting costs.

[amytysoe]

I always remember that in teh winter of 14-15 there were lots of rumours about Nissan being 6 months behind schedule, which were always vigorously denied but by the time the car turned up at an event it was still clearly about that far behind.

It's such a shame they never got the time to get a working hybrid in it, the whole project died without ever really getting the chance to actually test the core concepts underpinning it all.

[alidaraie]

This project was such a radical departure from everything in the last 40 years of motorsport that they had to completely unlearn and relearn everything they knew about racecar engineering. Naturally this requires a lot more time to develop than tried and tested concepts. Could Nismo succeeded with more time? Maybe. But Nissan GT-R LM will be forever be one of the most fascinating cases of "what could have been".

[kolorado]

Such a promising concept. One of the bigger "what could have been" at Le Mans.

[theteacupman]

I'll always be grateful for the GTR-LM as it was the car that got me into watching Lemans in the first place. As Nissan was live streaming the race with some onboard cameras and other stuff on their YouTube channel

[riccardotassoni]

It feels like a sequel to the Mastercard Lola saga, a good concept
kneecapped by a stupidly short development time imposed by the
managers.

[ambergris]

I remember Nissan making a huge deal of this car at the Super Bowl. They had made some waves before with the DeltaWing concept, that people agreed was a promising concept that didn't get to show its potential. Then they came to the Super Bowl with those ads saying that they're "here to take back what is theirs" or something like that. While showing a FWD race car, a radical and surprising concept. Since they had good history of race innovation (not just the DeltaWing, but also the GT-Rs), this was taken quite seriously, although with a pinch of salt. All of this made the faceplant of the 24 Hours of Le Mans sting that much more, and even if there might have been potential, it was all buried under volcanic layers of shame, disappointment and mockery. I'd love to see someone take over that concept, and try to make it work (same story for the DeltaWing), with more humility of course. But Nissan's pride cost these innovation their chance.

[ajrichar]

This is the best video on the GT-R LM I've seen. Thank you.

So, the speed trap results suggest the inherent aero efficiency of the body design was as planned. Your video implies that the two critical points for the project were the failure of the mechanical hybrid system - which never worked - and Nissan management impatience by demanding it race before it was ready. Without working hybrid pushing power to the rear wheels, it was a purely FWD car that upset the total design and engineering concept, and therefore could never be competitive. Then, Nissan management lost faith with the concept before giving the team the time to work through the fixes.

Would an electric hybrid energy system have worked in its place for 2016? Is this a design that was really only suited for Le Mans' unique mix of long straights and fast changes of direction?

What has happened to Ben Bowlby since? Is his reputation trashed, or is he still highly respected?

[tomsmith]

I loved this car, the innovative design. The way it had the potential to obliterate the competition by doing everything “the wrong way”. I was gutted to hear that the Nissan management were short sighted and pulled the plug. I genuinely believe we were robbed of a genuine Le Mans Legend in this car.

[howsmydriving]

A throwback to the '60's and '70's, when entrants were willing to think out of the box and try radical new approaches. If only they'd given it another

[amp]

A few other things to mention:

1) The electronics were terrible (presumably related to time pressure), so in the onboards you can hear how crude the traction control is, and how long it remains active after slow corner exits.
2) The pullrod front suspension (combined with poor electronics above) meant that when the drivers touched kerbs it would massively upset the front end, resulting in even more problems.
3) On at least a few occasions drivers would lock the front wheels up so severely that they stalled the engine and had to restart it. You can see an example of this in the night onboard video that's also on YouTube at 0:27.

I was a bit disappointed they cancelled this program, because I do think it had great potential.

edit: One more thing: there was a HUGE amount of flex in the steering column too (visible from onboards), which probably wasn't reassuring for the drivers.

[rjung_ch]

I liked that design a lot. The delta wing was so cool as well. Thinking out of the box.

[GTfour]

Saw them up close and personal, back at Le Mans '15.
Truely great effort. Sad it didn't come to fruition.

[EikeSky]

As others have said, really epitomising the Spirit of Le Mans. Such a brilliant design that would slide (ironically) into LMH perfectly. Maybe Nissan should look at a return with a conventional Hybrid system and no rear wing like the peugeot....

[Phos]

My take on this design, where as the delta wing was a neat idea with genuine benefits, this seemed like it strayed more into the realm of an engineering fixation. Sounds like the actual fixation was the mechanical energy storage.

[joeful]

This car have insane tech under hood.
1250Hp and its FF!
Mechanical energy storage i never heard about that, wow!
9:18 That is crazy!

[bigbuckoramma]

I think you missed a very critical point of the aero development of the car, and why the FWD layout was chosen.

The rear diffuser was a heavily regulated design that was the same among all P1 teams. Where as the front splitter and diffuser area, much like the engine regulations, was nearly completely open and free for design. So the decision was made to exploit that area of the regulations, and make a massive front diffuser, with an extreme forward weight bias to match. That eventually drove the FWD layout, and the flow through tunnels to help with diffuser extraction and drag reduction at the rear. As well as making the rear diffuser significantly more efficient. Which is why at high aero loads, the car was fantastic at throttle pick ip, and mid corner speed, such as you described at the entrance of the Porsche Curves.

I think the way you presented it, makes it sound like they just decided this was a great idea to try FWD and be different, and then engineer around it as they went. When in fact there was a solid interpretation of the grey areas in the rules that drove this design brief right from thr start.

A couple of other things I think you also glossed over, is the fact that ToroTrak has never had a hybrid system that has worked as advertised. Even their system for commercial busses was grossly over promised, and heavily under delivered. It never ran with any reliability, or anywhere near the output power levels they claimed. During 2016, and the promotion of this cars racing program, ToroTrak gathered a massive amount of funding and investment money with multiple press releases about all the great things they would do with Allison, JCB, and a couple of CAT subsidiaries. By the beginning of 2017 the companies portfolio had nothing to show for, and by 2018 the company went into receivership. No FlyBrid system has ever been made commercially viable.

With regards to the brakes. Part of the caster change in the car was due to a requirement to make room for thr larger caliper for the larger rotor. Likewise, the brakes themselves were not LPM1 spec brakes. But where infact new old stock of LMP2 assemblies. And were being pushed WAY out of their deaign specification. Which was why they were required to be changed so often. And in connection with that, thr spindle and tire chane meant the cara suspension qas being put through significantly more loading. And in the tests at Sebring, they damaged the chassis at the puck up points for the suspension, because of thr high shock loads. This was also one of the primary reasons why the cara were told to stay off the curbs at Le Mans, because there was concen that they would have another suspension failure on yhe chassis. And because of the increased shock to thr drivetrain on an already over stressed clutch, which much like the original brake package, was deaigned lighter and smaller with a hybrid system in mind.

And lastly, the very final shot of the car sitting next to some trash, fenced off next to an industrial warehouse, was thankfully not one of the full race cars. It was just the static display model used for the auto show circuit. Less than 12h after this photo showed up online, this display model disappeared, and has never been seen again.

[polaxis]

Thank you very much for the video. You gave a lot of insight into the challenges of the hybrid (flywheel) system. Since Audi also used a flywheel, what was so fundamentally different that Audi's concept did work and Nissan's did not? Just the much, much higher KJ (energy) requirement? The challenges for Audi must have been similar.
Also: There were once interesting rumours about Audi's fuel tank / fuelling pipe design that saved them time during pit stops, but can't find it anymore. Maybe worth a video? :) Liebe Grüsse aus der Schweiz!