After claiming nine international championships around the world in 2015, Nissan looks to continue to build on that in 2016. NISMO athletes will continue to fly the flag in Japan, North America, Europe, and Australia.
SUPER GT GT500
Having proudly claimed the SUPER GT GT500 Championship for two years in a row, Nissan/NISMO now seeks to make that a hat-trick of victories in 2016. Four Nissan GT-R NISMO GT500 teams will compete in the GT500 class. Fresh from a two-year stint of Blancpain Endurance Series and Bathurst 12-hour races, Katsumasa Chiyo will make his GT500 debut in 2016.
Toshikazu Tanaka, Corporate Vice President of NISMO will take over the role of Nissan GT500 team executive director from Kunihiko Kakimoto. Kakimoto has served as executive director for 12 years since 2004 and contributed to Nissan’s 12 GT500 series titles.
1 – NISMO – Tsugio Matsuda / Ronnie Quintarelli
Team Principal: Yutaka Suzuki
MOTUL AUTECH GT-R / Michelin
12 – TEAM IMPUL – Hironobu Yasuda / João Paulo de Oliveira
Team Principal: Kazuyoshi Hoshino
Calsonic IMPUL GT-R / Bridgestone
24 – KONDO RACING – Daiki Sasaki / Masataka Yanagida
Team Principal: Masahiko Kondo
TBA / Yokohama
46 – MOLA – Satoshi Motoyama / Katsumasa Chiyo
Team Principal: Toshiomi Oeki
S Road CRAFTSPORTS GT-R / Michelin
BLANCPAIN GT SERIES ENDURANCE CUP / SPRINT CUP
The driver line up in the Blancpain GT Series once again utilizes drivers from all areas of Nissan’s global motorsport family. After the success of Katsumasa Chiyo’s program in Europe, NISMO has assigned 23-year-old young Japanese star Mitsunori Takaboshi to continue his development program in the Pro class of Blancpain championship, teaming up with highly experienced Alex Buncombe and Lucas Ordóñez.
2015 GT Academy winners from the International competition (Australian winner Matt Simmons) and GT Academy Europe (French winner Romain Sarazin) will join Sean Walkinshaw who joins the team after impressive displays in 2015.
Sprint Pro car: Alex Buncombe, Mitsunori Takaboshi
Sprint Pro Silver Cup car: Sean Walkinshaw, Ricardo Sánchez
Endurance Pro car: Alex Buncombe, Lucas Ordóñez, Mitsunori Takaboshi
Endurance Pro Am car: Sean Walkinshaw, Matt Simmons, Romain Sarazin
PIRELLI WORLD CHALLENGE
In North America, Nissan North America’s efforts will fight for the Pirelli World Challenge with Always Evolving Racing/AIM Autosport with a pair of Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 entries. The entries will be driven by; James Davison who last year earned two overall victories and sixteen top ten finishes. James will be driving the #33 AERNOW sponsored entry. The second car will be driven by
GT Academy winner Bryan Heitkotter. Bryan will be driving the #05 entry as a full GT driver after earning five victories in GTA class and eleven overall top ten finishes last year.
#33 AERNOW GT-3 GT-R driven by James Davison
#05 Nissan GT Academy GT-3, GT-R driven by Bryan Heitkotter
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