Nissan Motor Corporation and Nissan Motorsports & Customizing Co. Ltd. (NMC) announced their full range of motorsports activities for the 2024 season.
Nissan and NMC’s sportscar racing programmes are headlined by its four-car effort in the Autobacs SUPER GT Series GT500 class. Drivers and teams were announced last month, and the revised Nissan Z NISMO GT500 – based on the new high-performance edition Nissan Z NISMO – has already gone through significant testing ahead of its debut in 2024.
The revised front fascia of the Z NISMO is among the changes to the GT500 car, which won the championship on its debut in 2022.
The four Z NISMO GT500s will all have familiar looks to last year – with one exception, the #12 Marelli Impul Z of Kazuki Hiramine and Bertrand Baguette. After over 35 years of wearing the solid bright blue of the predecessor company Calsonic, the Marelli Z will instead be painted in a darker shade of blue, aligning with Marelli’s corporate identity.
Also confirmed, after months of rumours, is the imminent arrival of a new Nissan Fairlady Z (RZ34) race car built to the GTA-GT300 vehicle regulations by Gainer Inc. of Kyoto.
The #11 Gainer TanaX Nissan Fairlady Z GT300 GT will be driven full-time by Ryuichiro Tomita and Keishi Ishikawa, two tenured drivers of the Gainer team who won at Fuji Speedway last August. Kazumi Fujii will continue in his role as the team director.
Further details of the new Z GT300 will be announced before the first official SUPER GT pre-season test at Okayama International Circuit, according to an official statement from Gainer released today.
Gainer’s new Z will supplement four Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3s that will also enter the SUPER GT GT300 class this year. As announced previously, Kondo Racing and the debuting HELM Motorsports will feature in this group of GT-R customer teams.
NILZZ Racing and Tomei Sports have also been confirmed to return in 2024. So far, only Taiyo Ida has been announced in the #48 GT-R for NILZZ Racing, while Tomei Sports has yet to announce drivers for the #360 RunUp Rivaux GT-R.
With HELM Motorsports moving to GT300, Team Daishin and GTNET Motor Sports will field a single GT-R GT3 in the Eneos Super Taikyu Series. Noboyuki Oyagi is the only driver confirmed so far in the #81 GT-R.
Team 5Zigen will represent Nissan in GT World Challenge Asia, where the Pro-Am pair of Hiromasa “Hirobon” Kitano and Yu Kanamaru will drive the #500 GT-R.
Nissan/NMC has also revealed an expanded roster of customer teams running the updated Nissan Z NISMO GT4, which, pending homologation, will compete in both Japan and North America.
In Japan, three cars will race in the Super Taikyu Series ST-Z class – including two from Team ZeroOne, which is supported by the student and service mechanics of the Nissan Mechanic Challenge. Tadao Uematsu, Tsugio Matsuda, Kimiya Sato, and Teppei Natori will drive the #25, and Ryuichiro Otsuka, Ryuichiro Tomita, Takuro Shinohara, and Seiji Ara will drive the #26.
Naniwa Denso Team Impul returns with its single car, the #20 driven by Yuki Tanaka, Kazuki Hiramine, and Kazuki Oki.
Four cars will enter the Pirelli GT4 America championship, featuring the addition of one of America’s most prestigious privateer racing teams, Flying Lizard Motorsports – with the #5 driven by Canadians Stefan Rzadzinski and Damir Hot.
Blackdog Racing, a mainstay of the SRO America series and its predecessors, will also run the new Z NISMO GT4, driven by veteran Tony Gaples and Michael Cooper.
TechSport Racing, which launched the Z GT4 in America last year, returns with two cars. Colin Harrison and Eric Powell will return to drive the #22, while the #23 has an all-new lineup led by 2021 Silver class champion Michai Stephens and Jonathan Neudorf, a graduate of the Mazda MX-5 Cup.
In addition, two previous-generation Nissan Fairlady Z34s will be run in the Super Taikyu ST-3 class by Okabe Jidosha Motorsports.
And finally, Nissan will carry out one final year of support for the VK56 engine competing in LMP3 races around the globe, before it is replaced in 2025. The engine was used in the Asian Le Mans Series, and will now continue to race in the IMSA VP Racing Sportscar Challenge, European Le Mans Series, Michelin Le Mans Cup, Ultimate Cup Series, and German Prototype Cup.
Images © Nissan
