The Nissan GT-R LM NISMO project kicked off all smiles and swagger, a team hungry to run at Circuit de la Sarthe alongside perennial German titans Porsche and Audi in LMP1.

"Goliath had the wrong tools. David had the right tools," preached Darren Cox, the Global Motorsport Director behind Nissan's first Le Mans prototype effort since 1999. "Have we the right tools? We think so."

But after numerous technical setbacks, primarily involving the GT-R LM's new flywheel hybrid system, Cox has pared back the rhetoric and hedged expectations. Le Mans 2015 became, as one NISMO spokesperson called it, "a learning year." Winning? "Well, one of the cars finishing would be nice..."

Jean-Francois Monier/AFP Getty Images

An hour into the race, the No. 21 Nissan P1 was blue-flagged for holding up a P2 car. Then its cockpit mechanism malfunctioned, the driver's hatch flew open, and No. 21 trundled back to the pits like a floppy puppy with one ear cocked.

Ooof.

Still, I like the GT-R LM. You should, too. It's a 1940-lbs hybrid racer, a 1250-hp, front-engine, front-drive peculiarity that looks the result of forced breeding between a Chapparal 2J and Panther De Ville kit car. That's a 'prototype' in the truest sense, a curiosity realized in woven carbon and odd ducting and strange noises. It breaks tons of unspoken rules without breaching a single regulation. The GT-R LM wasn't competitive this year on motorsports' grandest stage, at Le Mans. Nobody knows if it'll even lead a lap anywhere, ever. But the thing is literally—and bravely—ass-backwards. And I dig that.

The Germans, however, do not. This became apparent while chatting with a bigwig from one of Nissan's P1 rivals minutes before the race. The GT-R LM is an attention grab, he said, a sideshow not worthy of racing at la Sarthe. He called the NISMO program "a disgrace," then asked not be quoted by name. Which, considering what he said next, is understandable:

"What is their intention? You can come here and do whatever you want, say whatever you want, but when the final minutes come, what will you show? That's what racing is about. Is coming to race just a marketing tool? Just marketing? That's what pisses me off. In the old days, the technical side was on top. Now, marketing is the top. The technical side is not as important.

"And if it is just marketing that Nissan is doing, then there is something wrong with the sport. If [the car] isn't showing promise in simulations and testing, it will never fly. Never. They may be embarrassed, but they knew from the beginning, after the Sebring test. Stay home. Even if it's totally different, it still has to work."

Dude was genuinely offended. And this is more than a little gamely shit-talking; it's an insight into the German corporate culture, how they approach racing. This guy doesn't hate the GT-R LM because it's a competitive threat—he hates it because it's not. Basically, the Germans think Nissan is trolling Le Mans. Hard.

Is that true? Maybe the better question is: Does it really matter? Racing's staid landscape needs more ballsy propositions, more weird and unnerving, competitive or not. Without it, the sport will wither and die. The Nissan GT-R LMP1 may be a marketing tool, and it may be slower than a P2, but it's damn good for racing. When Goliath has all the right tools, you just hope David shows up driving something interesting.

This article previously (and erroneously) attributed a quote to Ben Bowlby, the designer of the GT-R LM. The piece has been corrected.

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