A warning for Nissan's Le Mans return

The sense of expectation as I prepare to travel to Le Mans for the test day is getting too much for me. I think it's the prospect of seeing a new car from a returning grandee of the 24 Hours that's getting me going.

I'm writing this in May 2014, but I reckon the same words could spill from my keyboard in 12 months' time. This year we have Porsche and its 919 Hybrid, and next year we are going to have Nissan with the GT-R LM NISMO.

The Japanese manufacturer's return to Le Mans seeking outright glory for the first time since 1999 will not be quite so emotive as Porsche's big-time comeback, but it is important nonetheless.

Nissan was a major player at Le Mans for a long time. Admittedly not an ultimately successful player, but one that came with big projects and big intentions. The years that stand out from my time reporting on the 24 Hours are 1990 - and its eight-car assault - and then its return with TWR seven years later.

Nissan might have won in 1990. Everyone remembers Mark Blundell's accidental big-boost pole position lap (the wastegate had jammed), but against the backdrop of a Jaguar one-two, the fact that one of its Lola-built Group C coupes led for a long time through the night has been largely forgotten.

I'm sure it is not forgotten by the team flying the flag for Nissan this year, however. RML masterminds the ZEOD RC Garage 56 entry for the marque in 2014, 24 years after it looked after the Group C car run under the US NPTI banner. Only a fuel leak stopped it from winning all those years ago.

Nissan will win Le Mans, according to Palmer

The 1997 race was also a year in which Nissan should have done better. Its R390 was fast but ultimately not reliable. One year on, when Nissan finally made it onto the podium, the long-tail version of the car was reliable but not fast.

It's almost impossible to avoid the conclusion that Nissan's history at Le Mans is one of underachievement, even failure, given the millions upon millions of yen it has spent over the years.

That makes Nissan's bold statements on the launch of the LMP1 project in London last week difficult to understand. For a manufacturer to say that it is going to win Le Mans inside two years is at best brash. At worst it is arrogant, foolhardy and - worse still — disrespectful of the great race and the great competitors it will be facing.

Porsche, with all its history and successes on the Circuit de la Sarthe, has chosen to be humble on its return. There have been no verbose statements about what it is going to achieve over the lifespan of the 919, and the best I've got from Porsche P1 boss Fritz Enzinger about year two is a "we have to win".

That's in contrast with Nissan vice-president Andy Palmer's "we are going to win". I know Nissan isn't the same company today as in 1990, '97 or even '99 (though there are a few old timers from those years still at NISMO), but Palmer would have done well to have undertaken a bit more research into his company's previous forays at Le Mans. Perhaps he did, which makes his claims all the more surprising.

I'm not saying that Nissan is necessarily going to continue its history of failure on its return to the top prototype ranks next year. But whether or not Palmer's confidence turns out to be correct, it should have remained behind closed doors at Nissan HQ.

Overconfidence is a terrible thing in sportscar racing, and I'm pretty sure that Nissan has been guilty of it in the past. It paid to be the featured marque on the Le Mans event poster in 1990 simply because Jaguar had been featured in 1988 and Mercedes with Sauber in 1989 - and they had gone on to win the 24 Hours in those years. Maybe it was presumption or maybe it was superstition.

There's also a story, one that I'm reliably informed is true, about a manufacturer that had its victory T-shirts waiting and ready one year at Le Mans. The funny thing is that it did win, but the shirts trumpeted victory for the wrong car. That's the wrong type of car, so I'll have to leave it to you to work out the year.

Nissan at Le Mans in 1997 © LAT

I actually reckon Nissan is going to give a good account of itself when it joins the World Endurance Championship in 2015. There's no doubt that NISMO builds good engines, and in Ben Bowlby at the head of the design team, it has the kind of mind that can exploit the new LMP1 rulebook to its fullest. And Dan Gurney's All American Racers organisation is as good a place as any to build a car competing in a world championship in this day and age.

What's more, Nissan has revealed that it is a long way down the road on this project. The announcement of its P1 return wasn't a surprise, but the advanced stage of the GT-R LM NISMO was. The plan is for the car to be up and running in October, which puts it on a par with where Audi was at the same time last year and someway ahead of Toyota.

Nissan is clearly serious about its LMP1 return and appears to be putting together a very coherent programme. I really hope it can challenge for victory in 2016, but I just wish it had been a bit more circumspect when talking about its aspirations.

Le Mans can bite, and it has a habit of biting the overconfident.