Revolutionary Lemans Race Car

Races are won in the corners, right? Nissan is betting that Le Mans can be won on the straights with a low drag, front wheel drive race car. Nissan says the long straights at LeMans give their front wheel drive an advantage.
The Peugeot diesel beat the heavily favored Audi TDI at Le Mans a few years back with a car geared for top speed on the straights rather than acceleration out of the corners. More info at the link.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthew...ssan-gt-lm-nismo-race-car-has-road-car-roots/

I remember that the Cords were front drive. I did not realize that front drive was used before them.

Well, the Nissan fwd endurance racers had a disappointing debut at Le Mans, according to autoblog.com. "Nissan experienced all the pain of a first-year effort with its front-wheel-drive GT-R LM Nismo. The three car effort was consistently 20 seconds slower than the leaders, and cascading problems kept the cars in and out of the garage."
-One the positive side, the Porsche Hybrids took the top two overall spots, with the Audi TDI finishing third. Looks like fuel efficient cars still dominate endurance racing.