Deltawing coupe race debut set back from Laguna Seca ALMS round
The race debut of the new coupe version of the DeltaWing experimental prototype has been set back from next month's Laguna Seca American Le Mans Series round
ALMS founder Don Panoz, who has taken full control of the DeltaWing project for this season, had wanted the new car to race at round three of the US series at the California track.
The problems with the Mazda-based Elan engine, which has replaced last year's Nissan powerplant, at the Sebring 12 Hours last month have forced the DeltaWing Racing Cars squad to refocus its programme.
Team manager Dave Price said: "We will be at Laguna, but it won't be with the coupe. The plan now is to debut it later in the summer.
"We need to get some more testing under our belts and iron out the problems we had at Sebring before we introduce a new car."
The open-top DeltaWing will test at the team's home track at Road Atlanta next week and will then run at Buttonwillow Raceway in California in the lead up to the Laguna Raceway.
Olivier Pla and Andy Meyrick, who raced the car at Sebring, will handle testing duties and race the car at Laguna on May 11.
Price added: "We want to keep consistency in the programme by using the same two. Neither of them will be able to do all the races, so there will be other drivers later in the season."
The new DeltaWing coupe, which was unveiled over the course of Sebring race week, is built around a bespoke monocoque designed and built by Panoz's Elan Motorsports Technologies organisation rather than the Aston Martin AMR-One tub of the original.
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| Series | WEC |
| Author | Gary Watkins |
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