Paris, France - This is the RenaultSport R.S. 01, built to the 2014 LMP1 endurance-racing regulations but intended specially for a new one-make Renaultsport Trophy championship in the World Series by Renault from 2015.
It was designed by the winner of an internal competition - Akio Shimuzu of Renault's Guyancourt studio - and built in a hurry; the final shape was only signed off on 25 April.
CHASSIS
The chassis is by Italian specialist Dallara, which also builds the Formula Renault 3.5 cars. It has a carbon-fibre monocoque tub (which includes the 150 litre fuel-tank), a tubular-steel roll cage and separate crush boxes (crumple zones) at both ends.
Suspension is by double wishbone and pushrod all round, with fully-adjustable Ohlins dampers and PFC brakes with six-piston callipers and 300mm carbon-ceramic discs.
MOTORVATION
Power is provided by a 3.8-litre Nissan GT-R biturbo V6, converted by Nismo to dry-sump lubrication and tweaked to more than 370kW and 600Nm with a Pectel electronic unit that includes a traction control function.
It drives the rear wheels through a seven-speed Sadev paddle-shift sequential transmission with an on-board adjustment for the limited-slip differential.
The finished car is 4.7 metres long, two metres wide and only 1.116 metres high, and weighs less than 1100kg ready to go, which should give it a top speed of more than 300km/h and lap times somewhere between a GT3 and a DTM car.
Vite, for those of us who have never watched a Pink Panther film, is the French word for 'fast'.