Lola B2K/10

The Lola B2K/10 was a Le Mans Prototype developed in 2000 by Lola Cars International for use in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, American Le Mans Series, Grand American Road Racing Championship, and Sports Racing World Cup. It was a replacement for the previous Lola B98/10 and shared some elements with its smaller variant, the Lola B2K/40.

Development

More an evolution of the B98/10 than an all new car, the B2K/10 shared many design elements, most notably at the front end of the car. The unusual fenders and headlights remained, while the nose had been raised in order to accommodate a higher footbox. However, unlike other prototypes which usually had the nose come to a point to allow for an air intake, the B2K/10's nose merely stopped where the footbox ended, leaving a large vertical protrusion. Inside of this, a third headlight was mounted for better visibility in endurance races.

Part of the reasoning behind not creating an intake in the nose was due to the decision to draw all the cooling air for the car from underneath. Unfortunately, this design would suffer from problems due to ambient track temperature, a problem that had similarly plagued the BMW V12 LM in 1998. The large air intake mounted underneath the rollbar of the B98/10 could also be removed, although not all cars did this. If removed, the intakes were relocated to small nacelles to the side of the cockpit, allowing for a cleaner flow of air to the rear wing from underneath the rollbar.

The sides would also be...
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