Nissan GT-R NISMO GT500 teams fight back at Okayama

OKAYAMA, Japan – Nissan's GT-R NISMO GT500 teams pulled off a great fight back in the opening round of the Super GT Championship after being struck with an early setback at Okayama.

At the green flag, both JP de Oliveira and Ronnie Quintarelli took the outside line into turn one and gained several positions off the start.

De Oliveira initially slotted into second before Quintarelli repeated the outside line move on his fellow Nissan driver to grab second on the opening lap.

The Italian and Brazilian GT-R drivers held those positions in the opening laps before both being handed drive-through penalties for allegedly jumping the start.

Satoshi Motoyama settled into fourth place after the penalties aboard the new No. 3 NDDP racing with B-Max entry.

Despite the early setbacks, Quintarelli and de Oliveira fought back through the pack, and both made their pit stops at half race distance to hand over to Tsugio Matsuda and Mitsunori Takaboshi, respectively.

In the later stages of the race, Nissan had three GT-R NISMO GT500 entries running together with Matsuda leading Takaboshi – and Katsumasa Chiyo in fifth, sixth and seventh places. The three entries crossed the line in that order to score a strong handful of points at the opening round.

Despite being third fastest in the warmup with Jann Mardenborough at the wheel, the No. 12 Team IMPUL entry could not replicate that pace in race conditions with Mardenborough and Daiki Sasaki finishing 14th.

In the GT300, Nissan debuted the new 2018 GT-R NISMO GT3 with Hironobu Yasuda leading the class early in the race for nine laps before finishing fifth with Katsuyuki Hiranaka.

The Super GT stars now have their sights set on the second round of the championship at Fuji International Speedway on May 3-4. The mid-week event takes place during Japan's annual “Golden Week” celebrations.

NISMO Calendar

April 14-15
European Le Mans Series, Circuit Paul Ricard, France
IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, Long Beach, California, USA
Blancpain GT Series Asia, Sepang, Malaysia

April 21-22
Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup, Monza, Italy
Virgin Australia Supercars Championship, Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia

Source: NISSAN