Innovative Le Mans

Not long ago, our resident sage—the good Dr. Lawrence—noted that innovations in road cars have always come from sports cars, rarely if ever from Formula One. Carrying this one step further, if sports car racing is the font of road car innovation, then Le Mans surely must be its fountainhead. Across its 83-year history the 24 Hours of Le Mans has consistently proven to be a hotbed of automotive innovation and new ideas…some successful, some not.

This notion was brought into sharp focus again this year as Porsche, with its 919 Hybrid, claimed its 17th overall victory at La Sarthe. The numbers are compelling: the winner covered 395 laps for a total distance of 3,300 miles (just short of the all-time record); it covered this near-historic distance with an average speed of 139 mph and a top speed of 211 mph; it did this will consuming just 500 gallons of gasoline and its onboard regenerative systems producing 2.22 kWh of energy (enough to power an average family household for three months). Porsche, and its VW Group sibling Audi, have successfully used Le Mans as a proving ground for both diesel and hybrid technology to great effect. Elsewhere in this year’s field, other trailblazers could be found, including the strange-looking Nissan DeltaWing, with its unconventional, narrow layout, looking for a new, innovative way to cheat the wind. The DeltaWing is but another example of a long, and sometimes strange line of “revolutionary” designs looking for aerodynamic efficiency as a means to improved performance at Le Mans.