On October 18, 2011, Italian manufacturer Dallara confirmed that the 2012 series car would be named after the late IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon (DW12) in honor of his work testing the car before his death two days prior at Las Vegas, with the new bumper/nerf bar section being featured, it was designed to prevent many similar single-seater crashes such as the one that killed Wheldon. The nomenclature is similar to that of the old Formula One team Ligier, whose cars were labeled JSxx in memory of French F1 driver Jo Schlesser after his death at the 1968 French Grand Prix.