The biggest automotive scandal of the winter of 2018-19 was undoubtedly the arrest of former Nissan CEO and Chairman Carlos Ghosn, deposed from the company after 20 years for financial improprieties in his time as head of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance. While Ghosn’s arrest hasn’t negatively impacted Nissan and NISMO’s motorsport activities in the short-term, it did bring the tumultuous future of their motorsport activities into the spotlight.
This year, Nissan is putting their full weight behind their brand-new factory Formula E team, Nissan e.dams. But they’ve also made significant cuts in the motorsport division. The GT Academy is no more, and many of the programme’s graduates have left the Nissan family. Only a last-minute deal with CORE Autosport kept the Nissan DPi in IMSA after the closure of Extreme Speed Motorsport this winter. Team RJN, the face of Nissan GT racing in Europe, have switched to Honda. ByKolles Racing dropped their Nissan engines midway through the 2018-19 World Endurance Championship, the last remnant of the GT-R LM project, from which the wounds of its stunning failure haven’t yet healed. They’ve even sold off the former NISMO TV YouTube channel!
Apart from Formula E, Nissan’s only factory racing presence is in the GT500 class of the Autobacs Super GT Series. And over the last two seasons, Nissan has struggled to keep up with the likes of Lexus (Toyota) and Honda. They won only one race in 2017, and one race in 2018, lagging behind in terms of budget and results. NISMO CEO Takao Katagiri acknowledged the struggles at the 2018 NISMO Festival at Fuji Speedway and vowed for 2019 to take back the GT500 Championships.
Shortly after the curtain closed on the NISMO Festival, Nissan started the process of a massive overhaul of their entire GT500 programme. At the top, NISMO’s Chief Operating Officer Motoharu Matsumura was appointed the Executive Director of the programme. The Nissan GT-R NISMO GT500, which has struggled for results since the last soft reset of the GT500 aero regs in 2017, has been upgraded with better aerodynamic balance, weight distribution, and more power and drivability from their NR20A engine.
The changes also meant some very difficult decisions with the driver lineup. Satoshi Motoyama, the long-time ace driver for Nissan in GT500, retired from the top class after 22 seasons to take on a new role. Executive Advisor of NISMO, working with Matsumura. João Paulo de Oliveira parted ways with Nissan after 13 seasons and has found a new home with Aston Martin and D’station Racing. And Katsumasa Chiyo, the hero of one of Nissan’s most famous victories in the 2015 Bathurst 12 Hour, is nowhere to be found on the grid this year – he’ll instead be racing for Nissan customer team KCMG in the SRO Intercontinental GT Challenge.
Two positive outings in the official tests at Okayama International Circuit and Fuji Speedway have boosted the morale at Nissan after a tumultuous off-season. Three new drivers, a heavily revised car, and a new management structure are now in place. Will it be enough for Nissan to take the fight back to Honda and Lexus?
Here’s a closer look at the four Nissan teams in GT500 for 2019.
#23 | NISMO | Motul Autech GT-R | Michelin | Tsugio Matsuda & Ronnie Quintarelli
Amidst all the changes, the flagship NISMO team, the benchmark of the Nissan racing stable in GT500, remains unchanged – from the red livery of the #23 Motul Autech GT-R, to their semi-exclusive tyre partnership with Michelin, to the leadership of Team Director Yutaka Suzuki and Chief Engineer Takeshi Nakajima.
And crucially, the senior GT500 drivers for Nissan, the most successful two drivers ever to race together in the series: Tsugio Matsuda and Ronnie Quintarelli are back as well. Matsuda, the winningest GT500 driver of all-time, with 20 career victories. Quintarelli, the first-ever four-time GT500 Drivers’ Champion, and the winningest foreign driver in Super GT history.
They’re the only one of the four Nissan teams who have won races since the start of 2017. That included a victory in last year’s Fuji 500km. NISMO were willing to roll the dice with no tyre change strategies, but it cost them dearly both at Buriram, and in the Fuji 500 Miles, costing them a chance at a pole-to-win victory in the latter.
Matsuda and “RQ” are ready to mount another challenge at their third set of titles together, having won back-to-back GT500 Championships in 2014 and 2015 – the last championships for Nissan. For Matsuda, a third GT500 title would only add to his legend, making him only the fifth driver to win three or more championships in the top class of Super GT.
This is a big year ahead for Matsuda as he’s also doing a double campaign in select rounds of the Intercontinental GT Challenge. He’s already had his first taste of Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, and he’ll also be challenging big-time endurance races at the Nürburgring and Spa-Francorchamps. But Super GT is where Matsuda’s legacy has been written along with his back-to-back Super Formula titles from 2007 and 2008, and so the man nicknamed “Mr GT-R” looks to write another chapter.
It’s also another year that could further engrave the legend of Quintarelli, one of Italy’s greatest motorsport ambassadors – not only for his record successes in GT500 but for his tireless charitable work for disaster relief in both Japan and Italy in recent years. He has blazed a trail in Super GT with two braces of back-to-back titles. A fifth championship should rightfully put his name firmly in the discussion of “Best ever Super GT driver” if for some baffling reason his wasn’t already there.
As both Matsuda and Quintarelli turn 40 this year, both know that there aren’t too many chances left to return to the top as part of this core. But they are both still elite drivers, and so long as they are, they will continue to be the team by which all others are measured.
#3 | NDDP Racing with B-Max | Craftsports Motul GT-R | Michelin | Kohei Hirate & Frédéric Makowiecki
Just like NISMO, the sister NDDP Racing with B-Max squad – a second NISMO entry in all but name, looks exactly as it did last year, at first glance. The white livery of the #3 CraftSports Motul GT-R hasn’t changed, and they are the second team involved in Nissan and NISMO’s exclusive Michelin tyre partnership.
But their performance in a tough first season in the GT500 category didn’t resemble that of their NISMO counterparts. And after failing to record a top-six finish last season, the entire structure of the team has changed beneath the surface, starting at the very top.
Legendary driver and Team Director Masahiro Hasemi has retired from the paddock. In his place, NISMO’s Corporate Vice President, Toshikazu Tanaka, will take on new responsibilities as the Team Director for the NDDP Racing/B-Max team. The changes continue in the driver lineup, after the GT500 retirement of Motoyama, and Chiyo being reassigned after just three seasons in the top category.
But the new driver lineup at NDDP Racing with B-Max is a reflection of the massive changes made at Nissan this offseason, and it starts with 33-year-old Kohei Hirate, who is back in GT500 after a year down in GT300, but most importantly, he’s back with Nissan after spending his entire adult racing career as a Toyota driver, in a stunning defection.
Once one of Toyota’s prized prospects alongside Kazuki Nakajima and Kamui Kobayashi, two-time GT500 Drivers’ Champion Hirate, just three years removed from his last championship, has now jumped ship to Nissan. Such a change is rare these days, but as Hirate saw no opportunity to step back up to GT500 with Toyota and Lexus, what an opportunity he’s been given at Nissan to prove a point, while still in the prime of his career.
Hirate leaving Toyota was shocking enough, but the Super GT return of Frédéric Makowiecki – now a double factory driver with Nissan and Porsche, after five years was just as big a deal. Nissan sought after the 38-year-old Frenchman for his expertise with Michelin tyres. The Mako Shark returns to the Japanese waters in the form of his life: Overall winner of the Nürburgring 24 Hours, back-to-back class victories at the Sebring 12 Hours, and a class win at Petit Le Mans in Road Atlanta.
And when Makowiecki was driving for Honda from 2013 to 2014, he was an absolute force. Now five years later and in top form, he’s ready to add a GT500 title to his impressive CV. Hirate is also in it to win his third GT500 title and join the legends like Quintarelli, Wakisaka, Motoyama, and Tachikawa in elite company. Can this massively re-tooled NDDP Racing with B-Max Racing team pull off a mighty turnaround in 2019?
#12 | Team Impul | Calsonic Impul GT-R | Bridgestone | Daiki Sasaki & James Rossiter
There are cars that are instantly recognizable to racing fans the world over, and the Calsonic Nissan GT-R of Team Impul is one of those cars. It’s the car fielded by Impul’s legendary owner, co-founder, and former driver Kazuyoshi Hoshino.
The legend of the Calsonic GT-R began in touring cars with Hoshino as the star driver, and with the foundation of what was then known as the All-Japan GT Championship, he appointed Masahiko Kageyama as his driver to win them back-to-back titles in GT500, in 1994 and 1995. But it’s now been 23 long years between titles for Calsonic Team Impul. So many close calls over the years, though – most recently in 2014 and 2015.
And they had many close calls with victory in 2018 – most notably, having dominated the Fuji 500 Mile Race in August, only to have a certain victory ripped away as the result of a loose intercooler pipe. But if the form in testing was anything to go by, a reinvigorated #12 Calsonic Impul GT-R, running on Bridgestone tyres, looks to be back in form for 2019.
Daiki Sasaki set an unofficial track record around Okayama International Circuit to set the fastest time of the two-day test in March, while at Fuji Speedway, Team Impul’s newest recruit James Rossiter set the fastest outright time of the second two-day official test. Sasaki is returning for his second season aboard the famous “Blue Car”, and his sixth season as a GT500 driver for Nissan.
From a decorated karting background, Sasaki is by far Nissan’s most underrated factory driver, with three victories to his name in GT500, and a reputation as a consistent, smooth driver, one of the best late race “closers” in the field. His first podium with Team Impul at Sugo was a welcome success in his first year with the team, but the 27-year-old expects much much more.
There have been many great drivers to have driven for Team Impul over the years, and now, 35-year-old James Rossiter from Oxfordshire, England becomes the latest to drive for Hoshino-san and his team. He comes over having spent his entire Japanese racing career to date under the wing of Toyota, six victories from 2013 to 2018, including back-to-back Suzuka 1000km wins, and two third-place championship results in 2013 and 2014. But Rossiter is hitting the reset button after a tough Super Formula run in 2018 and part-time GT500 and LMP1 Privateer efforts.
That year in semi-hiatus and the determination to make up for the hardships of 2018 is just what the ruthless Rossiter needs to succeed when driving for Hoshino, a man who’ll extract and expect nothing but maximum effort from his two drivers – as Sasaki and Rossiter look to end the long championship drought of the legendary Calsonic GT-R.
#24 | Kondo Racing | Realize Corporation Advan GT-R | Yokohama | Mitsunori Takaboshi & Jann Mardenborough
Since debuting in the Autobacs Super GT Series in 2006, Kondo Racing have been able to win races in the GT500 class – but they’ve never been considered true championship threats. Team founder Masahiko “Matchy” Kondo, an accomplished former driver and a rock legend in Japan, would love nothing more to change that in 2019.
Elsewhere in the racing world, Kondo Racing are making an impact. They won the Super Formula Teams’ Championship this past year. Their brand new GT300 team is a continuation of their 2016 Super Taikyu champion squad. They’re going to the Nürburgring 24 Hours this June. But now it’s come time for Kondo Racing to step out of the shadow of their big brothers at NISMO and Impul.
Theirs is the only GT-R on Yokohama Advan tyres, continuing the partnership that began in 2006. New title sponsors Realize Corporation, a top logistics company, bring a brand new blue and white livery to Kondo Racing’s number 24 GT-R. And two-time championship winning Team Director Toshiomi Oeki, of the old MOLA team, is back in the series, now serving as Kondo Racing’s Chief Engineer.
All of these changes are pretty exciting, yes. But the big excitement is centred around the arrival of Jann Mardenborough as the new co-driver to the returning Mitsunori Takaboshi, forming an electric lineup of two young stars. Takaboshi and Mardenborough are the test and reserve drivers for the Nissan e.dams Formula E team, and as a tandem in Super GT, both drivers are on the verge of a breakout season.
The returning Takaboshi represents the last of the most recent generation of Nissan Driver Development Programme (NDDP) talents as the future of their Japanese driver academy is uncertain. But what is certain is that 26-year-old Takaboshi is a star talent. A Formula 3 Champion, a multiple GT300 class race winners, and in a programme that’s already produced the likes of Chiyo and Sasaki before him, Takaboshi might be the best of NDDP’s prospects, certainly the one with the most potential!
Takaboshi and his former co-driver JP Oliveira failed to score a top-five finish last season but did score points in six of eight races last year. At the same time, Mardenborough comes in having come so, so bitterly close to his first GT500 victories on two occasions last season. Fittingly, the last of the NDDP pipeline is now joined by Mardenborough, the last GT Academy champion still racing at a high level with Nissan.
The young man from Cardiff, no longer the “gamer turned racer” but still living out an incredible dream that began just eight years ago, has looked forward to his new challenge at Kondo Racing and his first GT500 races on the Yokohama tyres. Results from the manufacturer tests were encouraging, but only when the season starts will we know if they have the car and the tyres to give their awesomely talented young drivers what they need to bust through and compete for a title.
Testing pictures by Pierre-Laurent Ribault (Twitter/Instagram: @plribault)
Feature image courtesy of Nissan
