<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" Nissan has bungled its exit from the FIA World Endurance championship as badly as it handled competing in the\u00A0fiercely competitive sports cars series. Approximately 40 employees at the Indianapolis-based LMP1 program were notified by e-mail the program had been cancelled Tuesday morning, yet with many of the staffers on vacation for the holidays and away from work e-mail, news of the firing, for some, came from a press release the Japanese brand decided to post in its global newsroom. Those who did turn up for work Tuesday morning were barred access to the building, and senior team officials, who were also caught by surprise, stepped in to call and inform (or confirm) the sudden dismissals for all who worked at the facility. Nissan&amp;#039;s cancelation of the troubled program, just days before Christmas, is the latest chapter in what has been a truly tumultuous journey from concept to race. Road &amp;amp;amp; Track was present for the Nissan GT-R LM NISMO&amp;#039;s debut on Dec. 19, 2014, at Circuit of The Americas, where the radical, front-engine, front-wheel-drive prototype suffered through a troubled introduction that made only modest gains over the next 368 days until the program&amp;#039;s\u00A0termination. Penned by DeltaWing designer Ben Bowlby, the GT-R LM NISMO embodied bold decisions from nose to tail, and with those mechanical, drivetrain, and aerodynamic systems intertwined to achieve Bowlby&amp;#039;s performance targets, failure in any category would torpedo the car&amp;#039;s potential. A nightmare scenario emerged the moment the program began track testing the car when its hybrid energy recovery system\u2014meant to provide hundreds of horsepower to complement the Cosworth-built 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 engine\u2014was revealed as an utter disaster.  Supplied by Torotrak, the mechanical ERS unit was massively overweight\u00A0and its deployment of power was so problematic, Nissan chose to run its cars without the hybrid units enabled. With rivals Audi, Porsche, and Toyota using a combination of internal combustion engines and ERS systems to produce over 1000 horsepower in P1, Nissan&amp;#039;s total lack of\u00A0hybrid assist\u00A0left its drivers with approximately half the power of the competition upon initial acceleration. Continual production delays in the early portion of 2015, and a failed FIA crash test for the GT-R LM NISMO&amp;#039;s carbon-fiber monocoque, pushed the project&amp;#039;s planned introduction back from the season-opening WEC race at Silverstone to Round 3 at the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans. Lacking power, and woefully short on test mileage, the best lap produced by the three Nissans was 16 seconds shy of Porsche&amp;#039;s pole position set by the No. 18\u00A0919 Hybrid. In the race, mechanical failures and other issues forced two of the three GT-R LM NISMOs to retire, and the third car, which also experienced significant problems, was parked early and prepped to turn one final lap at the end of the contest.  For all of the pre-season braggadocio from the brand&amp;#039;s leadership, Le Mans was a humbling confirmation the project was far from prepared to tackle the world&amp;#039;s greatest endurance race, or to face Audi, Porsche, and Toyota in head-to-head competition. Just as Nissan opted to skip the first two rounds, the embarrassing Le Mans debacle led the brand to take its cars off-line and address its failings from the 24-hour before considering a return to the WEC. More testing at COTA followed where minor gains were found, but the big, missing chunks of speed continued to elude the hybrid-less cars, and Nissan announced it plans to miss more WEC races, including the team&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;home&amp;quot; race at COTA in September, and the brand&amp;#039;s true home event at Fuji in Japan. A return was anticipated for the final two rounds, but those plans were also dropped. It left Nissan with a full factory P1 program that raced just once in June at Le Mans, and a decent number of unpublicized tests, as the tangible returns for its core motorsports marketing campaign. Amid the latter stages of the project&amp;#039;s tailspin, Nissan P1 boss Darren Cox announced his departure, which had been expected for months, and in his place, NISMO appointed Mike Carcamo to revamp the entire program. Carcamo&amp;#039;s influence was immediately felt, and according to a few (former) employees, he held the team to much higher standards. With 2015 drawing to a close, Nissan&amp;#039;s P1 effort was focused on a strong comeback in its second year. The\u00A0Torotrak ERS system was to be replaced with a NISMO-designed, battery-based unit, and revisions to every aspect of the car was under way. A test last week at the NOLA road course in Louisiana produced more pace through new Michelin tires, but the car, according to one senior team member, was unable to generate proper speed to play with the leading P1 cars. &amp;quot;The first day was a disaster, but we did find some good things the second day,&amp;quot; said one team member. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m surprised the team wasn&amp;#039;t shut down after the last COTA test, and thought the same after the first day at NOLA, but it went better the second day and the mood changed for the better.&amp;quot;  Progress on NISMO&amp;#039;s ERS system was also falling well short of the power it needed to produce and, to make matters worse, the system wasn&amp;#039;t going to be ready for track testing until next March\u2014weeks before the WEC season starts at Silverstone. Compounding\u00A0Nissan&amp;#039;s problems, a second, recent failed FIA crash test with the GT-R LM NISMO&amp;#039;s monocoque reinforced the basic shortcomings contained within the effort. &amp;quot;There were a lot of things going wrong, but I think the new NISMO ERS system already failing to deliver as promised put the nail in the coffin for the bosses in Japan,&amp;quot; said another team member. &amp;quot;The part that really makes me mad is how dedicated everybody was to the program. When you have so many people working so hard, being so committed, through all of the problems we faced, to then have [Nissan] pull the plug\u2026it&amp;#039;s a really sh*tty way to reward that loyalty.&amp;quot; If there&amp;#039;s a positive to come from the program&amp;#039;s cancellation, it&amp;#039;s the respect earned by many of the team&amp;#039;s mechanics and engineers. One championship-winning IndyCar team reached out Tuesday morning to say a number of Nissan crew members stopped by to inquire about job openings, and another manufacturer, which competes in North American sports car racing, contacted a Nissan P1 manager with positions that are available for some of the newly unemployed staff. Nissan&amp;#039;s exit from the WEC isn&amp;#039;t a shock\u2014not after a forgettable 2015 and the endless delays and setbacks that took place. What is shocking is how\u00A0the brand treated its loyal, U.S.-based employees who went into the Christmas break with no inkling the axe was about to fall.  Ending a high-profile racing program is never easy, and given how poorly Nissan performed with its P1 project, closing it with yet another failure seems fitting.\u00A0 "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/motorsports/news/a27710/nissan-fired-its-lmp1-employees-over-e-mail/>