In London this evening Nissan Motorsport (NISMO) have made a huge announcement; they are entering the LM P1 category at Le Mans in 2015 to take on Audi, Toyota and Porsche in what is another big deal for the category and the prestigious Le Mans event.
Porsche’s return to the primary category at Le Mans has been widely seen as a breath of fresh air for the category and event with such a prestige brand returning with a view to victory.
Add the signing of F1 star Mark Webber to the Porsche team and the publicity for the 2014 race is sorted.
Tonight, NISMO made it clear they want a slice of that action. Off the back of this growth, NISMO have announced they will enter the LM P1 category in 2015 with an all new contender.
Nissan Executive Vice President Andy Palmer said tonight (and you can see this in the video below) “We’re not going to go to Le Mans and compete in this historic race with the intention of just turning up and making a nice marketing side-show, our intention is to win”.
Those are the kinds of words the sport needs, and it doesn’t stop there – he went on to say “Turning up in a vehicle which is basically another hybrid that looks like another Porsche, Audi or Toyota, I don’t know they all look the same to me, our intention is to do something a little bit different. To be frank, what we really want to be is a little bit of the ‘bad-boy'”
You know what that sounds like? “Bring it on”.
I for one am attracted back to the category with the Mark Webber signing, and this rivalry that has commenced before a wheel even turns in anger makes me want to stick around for next years event for sure.
The 2015 NISMO challenger will bear the GT-R moniker – with the GT-R holding such great respect across motoring and motorsport Nissan are smart to grow that brand. The GT-R LM NISMO will be something different, and we can’t wait to see it.
