The DeltaWing racer

Motorsport is struggling with two big problems. The gas-guzzling, high-carbon image of motor racing goes against current thinking, with the 21st century increasingly becoming an era where the environment tops the agenda. Meanwhile, and even more pressingly for the business people behind the sport, audiences are falling away as the lack of action-packed wheel-to-wheel racing threatens to turn events into tedious processions. Could the answer to both problems be a car that looks like a cross between a fighter jet and the Batmobile?

With its roots firmly in British motorsport design, the striking DeltaWing racer, developed as a concept for American IndyCar racing, has raised more than a few eyebrows in the motorsport community since it was unveiled last year. Its developers claim that the radical design could be the saviour of motorsport and the concept, although controversial, is making waves in the international motor-racing circuit.