Nissan LMP1 to hit track in November

Nissan's all-new 2015 World Endurance Championship LMP1 contender is scheduled to run for the first time in the first week of November. This means that the first run of the GT-R LM NISMO is more or less on schedule after an October test debut was announced when the program was launched in May.

Nissan global motorsport boss Darren Cox said: "We're pretty much on schedule, although there is always a certain amount of slippage." Cox revealed that the first monocoque is already complete and that the second was "just out of the mold.

The test of the first Nissan LMP1 hybrid will take place at an undisclosed location in the U.S. Cox said that testing ahead of the car's race debut prior to the opening round of the WEC next spring would be undertaken in North America from a newly established base in Indianapolis in the former shop of the Forsythe Champ Car team. The cars will then move to a European base to be set up at Nissan's European technology center in Cranfield in the UK ahead of its two-car attack on the WEC.

The official launch of the car is scheduled for early December, immediately ahead of a first public test at Sebring.

DRIVER LINEUP LATEST

No drivers have been announced for the programme, but Cox explained that the recruitment process was nearly complete. Cox promised a mix of nationalities among Nissan's drivers and stressed that it still hoped to use a number of drivers from its Super GT program at the Le Mans 24 Hours when its squad will expand to three cars. This is despite the Le Mans test day clashing with a round of the Japanese series at Autopolis, something that Cox said Nissan was hoping to resolve with the Super GT organisers.

He said that there would be at least one former winner of Nissan's GT Academy, which points to a seat for GP3 frontrunner Jann Mardenborough (RIGHT) at least for Le Mans.

Drivers believed to have secured Nissan seats for 2015 include WEC LMP2 frontrunner Olivier Pla and Satoshi Motoyama, who was part of Nissan's Garage 56 campaigns with the DeltaWing and the ZEOD RC in 2012 and '14.

Others linked to full-season and Le Mans drives include Nick Heidfeld, Jean-Eric Vergne, Joao Paolo de Oliveira and Tsugio Matsuda.

It is also likely that 2011 finalist and Porsche Supercup driver Sean Johnston will be part of the program.