NASAMAX’s Revised Plan
John McNeil has revised his plan for this season’s NASAMAX project, partly at the behest of the ACO.

“We’ve entered Le Mans, and we’ll definitely be at Spa, for the 1000 Kms in April," he commented, at the NEC on Thursday.

“We’re actually going to build a slight derivative of this car, and race that this year – while we design and build an all-new car for 2006.”

The NASAMAX plan is to have a quicker car racing in France this June, but one that is still as reliable as the 2004 version. Le Mans this year could well turn out to be a rather different kind of race than the 2004 running of the 24 Hours, and John McNeil is aiming to have his entry there at the finish.

“We under-performed slightly at Le Mans last year. If we’d have been at Le Mans with a car that ran as well as it did at Spa, we’d have been in the 3:37/38 bracket on race pace. We’re looking to qualify at about 3:36 this year – but one of the features of the hybrids is that they race at very close to their qualifying pace.”

The 5 litre Judd-powered machine topped the speed trap figures last June, but John McNeil and the team ‘clocked’ the car at 343 kph (rather than the official 330) – and there should be more pace this year (at least on lap times).

Drivers are ‘TBA’ at the moment. Michelin provides the rubber.

The 2006 (regs.) LMP1 NASAMAX should be testing by December of this year.

PS: Team NASAMAX, the only racing team to run a racing car on wholly renewable fuel, was winner of one of the most coveted Business Excellence Awards at the annual awards dinner of the Motorsports Industry Association (MIA) held at the NEC in Birmingham last night (Jan. 13).

Association Members vote for the winners in seven key categories, and the prototype team won the Technology and Innovation Award, sponsored by Ricardo. Team Nasamax's Technical Director John McNeil received the award from Clive Hickman, MD of Ricardo (below), and Lord Astor of Hever.

"It really was a complete surprise and I am very pleased," said John McNeil. "This is for the whole team. It is an indication that the concept of alternative fuel and energy efficiency is now being accepted by the industry. We produced some creditable results in 2004, and this season we will be running again at the Le Mans 24 Hours and Le Mans Endurance Series."