LM24: ZEOD won't try electric lap until race

RACER.com's extensive coverage of the 24 Hours of
Le Mans is presented by Circuit of The Americas. Visit

circuitoftheamericas.com/wectudor

Nissan will not attempt an all-electric lap of Le Mans with its experimental ZEOD RC racer before the 24 Hours starts on Saturday.

The Japanese manufacturer has so far been prevented from trying to complete a lap of the 8.47-mile Circuit de la Sarthe on battery power at either the test day on June 1 or during practice and qualifying on Wednesday.

Fuel pump and exhaust manifold issues limited the gasoline-electric hybrid to 24 laps at the test, before an input shaft failure in practice and then three red flags in qualifying prevented the car from completing any laps. The lack of running means Nissan and technical partner RML are behind in their program and will only run segments of the lap without the car's three-cylinder gasoline turbo engine engaged during Thursday night's pair of two-hour qualifying sessions.

"We won't go for a full lap tonight, but we will be doing big portions of the lap on electric power," Nissan global motorsport boss Darren Cox explained.

The ZEOD has run for more than 8.5 miles with its three-cylinder gasoline turbo engine switched off during testing, however. It ran for 11.9 miles around the Bruntingthorpe proving ground in Leicestershire, UK the week after the test day. But Cox stressed that was no guarantee that the ZEOD gas-electric hybrid would achieve its target of an all-electric lap during the race.

"That's 19km around a much slower circuits; here we have much longer straights that sap the power," he said. "We need to know how far to push the battery without damaging it – it is like over-revving a conventional engine.

"We have to build up to it slowly and that's why we will only be doing portions of the circuit on electric power tonight."

Nissan has a series of targets for the ZEOD, which is driven by Lucas Ordonez, Wolfgang Ullrich and Satoshi Motoyama: a lap at GTE Am pace and a 300km/h (186.4mph) top speed on the Mulsanne Straight on battery power, and a gasoline lap at LMP2 pace.