Nissan DeltaWing crashes in Atlanta

Oh dear. Just a few months after it was unceremoniously shunted off the track at the Le Mans 24hr race - prompting driver Satoshi Motoyama to break down in tears - Nissan's rather excellent DeltaWing racer has suffered another shunt.

During testing at the Road Atlanta circuit ahead of this weekend's Petit Le Mans, driver Gunnar Jeannette overtook GTC Porsche 911 driver Peter LeSaffre, only for LeSaffre to then come across during the overtake and wipe out Gunnar on the rear left side.

Suffice to say, the speeds they were doing caused the BatWing to roll quite violently into the side and into the wall- apparently, onboard data reckons the shunt maxed out at 7G. That's a big crash. And you can watch it below.

Thankfully, the driver was OK, while the Nissan DeltaWing team said the engineers were working hard on repairing the damage to get the car back on track asap.

Jeannette himself said: "I basically pulled almost completely past and then he cut over to try and take the apex, made heavy contact with the left rear of our car which, erm, sent me for a bit of a ride.

"I've always dreamed of being a test pilot, but not in a race car!"

Just before the shunt, the team posted a fastest lap of 1m 13.686s, during the test day, which is pretty ruddy quick. But we'd just like to send this message out over the Interwebs to Nissan's DildoWing team: if you're short of a few parts, Top Gear's got a spare one you might be able to use. It's not very quick, mind.

Gallery: Top Gear's home made Deltawing is finished!

Anyway, the video itself is quite painful to watch. But watch it you must. Brace yourselves...