Inside the Nissan LMP1 maelstrom

Ask drivers currently on the Formula 1 grid what they would do if they didn't have a grand prix drive and the majority will give a similar answer.

Some might talk of spending some time on the beach, or heading to rallycross, but the vast majority will say they want to be in sportscars, ideally as a driver for a factory LMP1 team.

So when Max Chilton, veteran of 35 grand prix starts with Marussia in 2013-14, signed up to Nissan's World Endurance Championship programme, he had his dream opportunity. Or so it seemed.

Today, Chilton's Nissan experience is just a memory and he's looking forward to his rookie season in IndyCar with Chip Ganassi Racing. But during 2015, he found himself in the centre of what proved to be one of the most ill-starred manufacturer sportscar projects in history.

"Formula 1 came to an abrupt and sad end in 2014," says Chilton. "I got to the end of the year and had nothing sorted for next year.

"Then I had a phone call from Nissan saying 'do you want to be one of our works drivers'. I always said if I wasn't in F1, I would do LMP1.

"I did it before [racing an Arena Motorsport-run Zytek in the 2007 Le Mans Series], loved it and it suits my style of consistency. So I thought 'boom, get the Nissan deal done' and we signed the contract very quickly. The deal was announced in early March."

While Chilton also raced in Indy Lights in 2015 for the family-owned Carlin team, his full focus was on the Nissan programme and racing in America had to fit in around it.

It was an obvious move, for this was his big chance to race at the top level of sportscar racing with a major manufacturer. But it didn't take long before he realised things weren't going to be quite as expected.

"It was a big shock," says Chilton. "I heard it was front-wheel drive but as it was a Nissan works project, you knew they had worked out they can do just as good a job.

"I went to drive it for the first time at Sebring, but the car had already broken its gearbox so they were packing up to go home when I arrived.

"Then we went to the Bowling Green, which was Chevrolet's testing track. It's not really a normal track, it's got one long straight and a load of horrible bends. But I only did about 50 laps before we went to Le Mans and that was it! There was problem after problem after problem.

"If they were doing a full testing programme now, it would still be two years away from being ready to race."

Chilton is full of praise for the effort that went into the Nissan project by those working on it, it's just that it was undercooked.

But it was clear from early on that the car did not have the performance to go with the exposure.

"They had massive press," says Chilton. "GoPro did a massive documentary and loads of other people were filming it.

"I was quite blunt about it the week before Le Mans doing pre-race interviews, that this is not a racecar and we're basically just driving a car.

"Nissan did get amazing exposure, but then you have to work out how good that exposure really was because they were just nowhere."

But there were positives. Chilton enjoyed being part of the team and was impressed by the industry within it.

He also enjoyed the blend of drivers he had the chance to work with. As well as his two team-mates in the #23 Nissan GT-R LM NISMO - Oliver Pla and Jann Mardenborough - he was part of a line-up that included GT Academy graduates Lucas Ordonez and Mark Shulzhitskiy, Japanese ace Tsugio Matsuda, Harry Tincknell, Michael Krumm and Alex Buncombe.

"It was just so frustrating, because there were some great people in that team," he says. "They could not have put any more effort in - they were literally doing 24-hour shifts but there was nothing they could do there and then to make the car good at Le Mans. It needed a complete redesign.

"But I learned a lot. And, actually, Le Mans was one of the most fun weeks of racing I've done because there were nine drivers and we all got on like a house on fire. We had a lot of time sitting around in testing!

"I've never been in a team with drivers from such different walks of life. We had drivers from the GT Academy who have driven a few racecars and are now driving an LMP1 car, we had Japanese people who didn't speak English, Harry who I have known since we were testing go-karts. We all had different experiences and got on well together, it was a really fun time."

Chilton with team-mates Pla and Mardenborough © XPB

But if it was enjoyable off track, on track it was a little different. Concerns about reliability meant that drivers could rarely attack, so even in an uncompetitive car (the fastest lap by any of the three Nissans was 18.413 seconds off the best of the race) there was little opportunity to go for it.

Chilton did at least get to do two relatively full driving stints - laps 38-75 and 148-181 for the car - and set a decent best lap of 3m48.690s while treading very carefully given the fragility of the Nissan - so his time was not completely wasted.

"At the end of the day, when you have nine drivers there will always be ones who want to push," says Chilton. "So you will push to see what you can do. But it was irrelevant because you would push for 20 minutes and then you are in the garage for an hour because you've broken a rear wishbone, or whatever.

"It was scary. We were doing 230mph at the end of the straights and were quicker than the Porsches and Audis. But it took us a minute to get there while they were getting there within four seconds! I was moaning about the steering from the first time I drove it because there was so much play, and then there was torque steer.

"You have Porsches and Audis flying past you on acceleration - massively faster, like shot from a gun, they were just gone. You tried to keep to one side of the track but the road is crowned so you would pull it right to stop it going onto the grass and it would pull the car right across the road into the other cars.

"Then you would have GT cars you overtake on the straight, and you get to a corner and they come flying back past or are pushing you through the final chicanes because the car was so slow and had no traction.

"It was the hardest thing I've ever driven. You can't call it a racing car."

Nissan LMP1 "the hardest thing I've ever driven" - Chilton © XPB

But for all that, Chilton does not regret it. He got the chance to work with some very good people, had the chance to experience Le Mans and can now at least say he has been a works driver in the 24 Hours.

And like the other eight drivers who drove at Le Mans, nobody was judging him based on his performance.

"I joined it very late and only did one race, so it was a positive because I was a works driver in an LMP1 car at Le Mans," he says.

"It was also frustrating because I couldn't focus on Indy Lights because of it and that was my stepping stone to being an IndyCar driver.

"But it was fun."

Chilton's Nissan managed 234 laps at Le Mans and was a non-finisher (one of the sister cars managed 242 laps and was rolling when the race ended), but fell well short of the required threshold to be classified.

And that was that for the Nissan project - and for now, Chilton's sportscar career.

Autosport's Gary Watkins followed the Nissan LMP1 project from its well-publicised launch through its troubled Le Mans and up until its ultimate demise.