Capitalizing on their performance at Road America last month where the team had it's first overall race lead and Katherine Legge became the first woman in ALMS history to drive in first position, DeltaWing Racing Cars revealed the next step of the radically innovative prototype to the international motorsports world this weekend, as the DeltaWing coupe will makes its race debut at the Crcuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.
The DeltaWing represents a major step forward in decreasing motorsport’s carbon footprint; its unique aerodynamic design dramatically reduces the amount of fuel and tires used during a race weekend and gives the car excellent straight line speed. Using this speed and good pit strategy to their advantage at Road America, drivers Katherine Legge and Andy Meyrick put the DeltaWing at the front of the field for the first time, on their way to a fifth place finish. With her eight laps at the front of the race, Legge became the first woman to lead an ALMS race.
The coupe, which conforms to 2014 regulations that require closed cockpits on prototype sports cars, paced brilliantly at its initial test earlier this month. Legge and Meyrick look forward to putting the car on the world stage.
“The visibility in the car is the best of any closed cockpit prototype I’ve driven,” said Meyrick, who has driven six different sports car prototypes. “The driving position is really good and the temperature inside the cockpit is good. The chassis, dynamically, is essentially the same, but there’s a lot to take in and a lot to learn with the new car.”
“It really is the same car, but with a roof on it,” said Legge. “A driver wants the best of both worlds; we want the closed cockpit for reduced drag but we don’t want to lose the added visibility and the ease of getting in and out - but the designers really did a good job with this car.”
DeltaWing Managing Partner Dr. Don Panoz was encouraged by the coupe’s performance at the test, where the car showed good speed with none of the temperature difficulties experienced by the open top version.
“The team and Élan (Motorsports Technologies, who built the engine) have spent a lot of time and tremendous effort making the coupe ready for the race this weekend,” said Panoz. “Based on our recent test, we’re extremely excited - the car appears to be faster than it was as an open-top car. We look forward to competing at Circuit of the Americas and giving everyone a look at the new version of the DeltaWing.”
Texas race fans will get their first look at this revolutionary race car at the Circuit of the Americas this weekend, when the American Le Mans Series joins the World Endurance Championship for an international sports car double header. Live streaming of race eight of the ALMS season will be Saturday, September 21 at 4:45pm EDT with qualifying at 2:50pm on Friday – both on ESPN3.com.The race will be televised on ESPN2 on Sunday, September 22 at 1:00pm EDT.
