Steering effort is of paramount importance in an endurance race, as is cockpit space – the drivers don’t want to hit anything during a changeover.’Ĭockpit temperature is also important. The seat position, air conditioning, access to the gearshift, brake bias, anti roll bar, drink bottle, radio and adjustability of the pedals because of the driver changes – all must be taken into consideration. ‘The majority of the races are endurance, and in order to win the driver has to be comfortable. ‘So the question was where to make the difference on this car,’ says Toso. Even in Grand-Am, the rules are so restrictive that the areas in which it can gain a competitive edge are limited. Given that Toso believes LMP1 to be factory dominated and LMP2 saturated, there are few places Dallara can go to find opposition. The Grand-Am is quite different from any car we have designed in the last 15 years. ‘It is important for us to keep our people motivated and fresh. Should a serious threat arise in, say, Formula 3 we must be ready. We will lose money, but the return on investment is not on this, it is on other programmes. We search for trouble as we have talented people in the company – good engineers, aerodynamicists, vehicle dynamicists and production people – but there is no challenge for them. Toso continues: ‘The Formula 3 is no more a ‘competition’ car, GP2, Indy Pro, Formulino and WSR are single make. The years 20 saw updates and then Panoz left that market. The last ‘competition’ car – that is, a car built to compete against other makes – designed by Dallara was its Indy car in 2003. We are not doing Grand-Am for profit.’ĭespite this, there is logic to what is happening in Varano de’Melegari.

But you have to design, wind tunnel, test and build, and we have predicted that just to break even we would have to sell 18 cars. Including spares, the most you are going to make will be $2 million.

The cost of the car is about US$450,000 (£228,500), not including gearbox or loom. Typically, 10 new cars are sold each year when crashes and new teams are taken into consideration… and there are many manufacturers. When a team buys a car they keep it for three years. So, what is it doing building a Grand-Am Daytona Prototype, particularly as designer Andrea Toso observes, it will never be profitable? Dallara is currently producing around 200 cars during a four-month period, the vast majority of them viable single seaters.

Daytona prototype