Nissan Bringing New LM P1 Racecars to Le Mans

Nissan will compete in the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship with two factory backed LM P1 racers. The Nissan GT-R LM NISMO racers get their name from the automaker’s flagship sports coupe, the famous 24 Hour race, and the company’s motorsports arm and race team. Not only is Nissan showing up to Le Mans, the automaker says it intends to win the grueling race.

"You don't go to Le Mans to just turn up," said Andy Palmer, Nissan CPO and executive vice president. Nismo head Darren Cox echoed Palmer's remarks, "The brief to the team is to go with something different. Go with something that brings new technology, which is transferable to the road car technology and an approach that is innovative and exciting, and of course, go to win.

"Believe me, I think this is the car that will go down in the annals of time and be one of those cars which will be long remembered, not only for the fact that it will have won Le Mans, but also that it reset the real meaning of NISMO as a link between success on the track and success on the road."

Although Nissan says that driver and technical details will be revealed “in due course,” the LM P1 program was launched near the automaker’s new global digital hub in East London, which is said to be “the heart of Europe's fastest-growing area of digital innovation.”

"Innovation is at the heart of everything we do," said Palmer. "There is no better place to demonstrate innovation than here in Europe's new hot-bed of digital marketing and, from next year, on track at Le Mans. We have chosen this venue – and made it a celebration, rather than yet another press conference – to reflect the fact that when we go racing, we do so differently."

NISMO has created a new Twitter hashtag, #eatsleepRACErepeat, for motorsport fans to keep up with the race teams’ race efforts. Check out the videos below to hear Andy Palmer, Shoichi Miyatani, NISMO president, and Darren Cox, NISMO global head of brand and marketing and sales discuss the new Nissan GT-R LM NISMO LM P1 racer as well as the teaser video.