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After racing at the 80th 24 'Heures du Mans', the Nissan DeltaWing took the chequered flag for the first time at Petit Le Mans, the final round of the American Le Mans Series 2012, with American driver Gunnar Jeannette and Spaniard Lucas Ordonez. In in the video above you can see the mechanics working to repair the car after the accident during free practice. For more clips go to www.lemans-tv.com.

Racing unclassified, the Nissan DeltaWing had to start from the back of the grid, after setting a time in qualifying time that would have put it in tenth place. After its premature exit from the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where it occupied the 56th pit dedicated to new technology prototypes, the Nissan DeltaWing went the distance at Road Atlanta having worked its way up to sixth place. It covered 388 laps and finished six laps behind the winning Lola-Toyota of Jani, Prost and Belicchi. As at Le Mans, the Nissan DeltaWing delivered a level of performance comparable to that of an LM P2 prototype, completing Petit Le Mans behind the Conquest Endurance Morgan Nissan and both Honda HPD ARX-03b of Level 5 Motorsports and the Oreca-Nissan of Thiriet by TDS Racing.

Lucas Ordonez: "There has been so much work put into developing this car and then after the crash this week made for even more work. We've now crossed the finish line in a 10 hour race. We've shown everyone in motorsport that the car is really strong and fast. 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 P2 cars."

Gunnar Jeannette: “I'm super proud to be involved in a program like this. The Nissan DeltaWing was amazing all day long and we're able to triple-stint our Michelin tires and the car literally performed flawlessly, as did the crew. I've seen Ben (Bowlby) smile a lot with this program over the past few weeks but I've never seen him smile this big as he is right now."

Ben Bowlby (Designer): “It is amazing what has happed in 12 months. This is the first one we've finished and it is only our second race. It was the next step for the Nissan DeltaWing and it is still surprising us all. To have reliability like that was really quite incredible."

Don Panoz: (co-founder of the DeltaWing project and creator of the ALMS and Petit Le Mans): “I'm very proud of what the guys achieved today because they really pulled off the perfect race. They kept out of trouble, didn't put a mark on the car, had perfect pit stops. It really was very impressive. The crowd reaction here at Road Atlanta was also great to see, with huge numbers of people wanting to get a closer look. There is no doubt there is certainly a lot of interest from the fans in seeing this car race again soon."

Click on the links below to find out more on the Nissan DeltaWing:

Testing accident
Interview with Gunnar Jeannette and other information

Jean-Philippe Doret
(Quotes from Nissan DeltaWing press information)