For all the admirers and haters of the Deltawing,
After spending 7 days at Petit LeMans I can say the Deltawing was far more effective than the "haters" would have given it credit for and surprised and delighted the admirers and fans even more.
Had the car been classified as a say LMP2, it would have had maybe 9 wave around during cautions. I think it was 3rd in the least amount of time spent in the pits. Think of what position the Deltawing would placed with that simple race control practice been implemented.
The below link is a video taken after the Petit LeMans where the car finished 5th overall. In qualifying, the LMP2 Pole was a 1:13.2, Deltawing was a 1:13.8 after missing a day for repairs. It used just 3 carsets of tires for the 1000 miles, and less than .4mm of total wear on the PFC low drag carbon brakes. Going into turn 10a the car was doing -3.44G @75bar stops.
http://www.pistonheads.com/news/defa...ber_181032912;
You will finally get a nice walk around the car with Ben Bowlby and you can see, especially the rear of the car, it shares more with a F2000 car than it does with any LMP. Look at the tube substructure bolted to the carbon tub and the tubular wishbones.
No one will argue the car is very counter intuitive but after Petit, no one should argue wither the car is effective, durable or if done from a commercial standpoint could be built and sold for about what a fully dressed modern F3 would go for as opposed to a full LMP2 car.
I must admit my own personal journey with this car had it's challenges (especially when trying to justify the project to the my company president!) but when the data started to show what the car capabilities were especially at place like Road Atlanta after the 1st 1000 miles of testing, it was quite gratifying and very cool indeed.
Darrick Dong
Director of Motorsports
PFC Brakes