Nissan wins the SUPER GT for the first time in seven years in the year of the new Z's debut[F1-Gate.com]

On 5 and 6 November the eighth round of the SUPER GT 2022 series took place at the Mobility Resort Motegi. The NISSAN / NISMO group took 1st and 2nd place in the series classification and challenged this final round, with the goal of winning the title. In the final round, the weight of success for all cars will be 0 kg according to the regulation and the no. 3 CRAFTSPORTS MOTUL Z (Katsumasa Chiyo / Mitsunori Takaboshi), who won two wins this season and finished runner-up, will be the No. 12 CALSONIC IMPUL Z (Hajime Hiramine), who is in second place with a win this season Takashi / Bertrand Baguette), in 7th place in 23 MOTUL AUTECH Z (Tsugio Matsuda / Ronnie Quintarelli) and in 9th place in 24 Realize Corporation ADVAN Z (Daiki Sasaki / Kohei Hirate) The Z GT500 entered the race.

Preliminaries
In qualifying, the n. 12 Z finished 3rd, the n. 3 Z finished 4th and n. 24 Z finished 5th.
On November 5th, qualifying day, the GT500 class qualifying Q1 started for 10 minutes starting at 14:53 in sunny conditions with an air temperature of 17 degrees and a track temperature of 28 degrees. Both the air temperature and the road surface temperature were low and each car carefully performed the warm-up laps before starting the attack. With the n. 3 Z, who attacked early, Chiyo set the time of 1’36.129, while Matsuda with the n. 23 Z, slightly behind the other cars, set a time of 1’36.390. On lap 4 and lap 5, Sasaki at number 24 Z improved his time to 1m35.736 on lap 5. Hiramine of No.12 Z finished Q1 on lap 4 with a time of 1’36.244. The results of Q1 were # 24 Z in 2nd position, # 3 Z in 7th position and # 12 Z in 8th position to move up to Q1.

Q2 qualifying started at 15:44 with the top 8 cars from Q1. Due to an accident in the Q2 of the GT300 class, the start of the Q2 of the GT500 class was delayed, further reducing the track surface temperature and making conditions difficult. Like Q1, Takaboshi at number 3 Z attacked on lap 3 with a time of 1’35.916, Baggett on number 12 Z on lap 4 with 1’35.752 and Hirate on number 24 Z on lap 5. With a best time of 1’36.000, the no. 12 Z was 3rd, no. 3 Z was 4th and No. 24 Z was 5th.

the final
The n.12 Z takes 2nd place on the podium and wins the series championship
Number 3 Z went from 12th to 4th place, finishing in 4th place and finishing 2nd in the standings.
The formation lap of the final race on 6 November started at 13:00 with clear skies. The 63-lap race began after two training laps in conditions of 16 degrees Celsius and 27 degrees of track surface temperature. Baguette driving the n. 12 Z, who started from 3rd position, maintained 3rd position as he approached the leaders. Chiyo on # 3 Z, who started from 4th position, maintained 4th position despite the contact with another car in the 5th corner of the first lap. Quintarelli at number 23 Z overtook three cars to climb up to sixth position. The n. 24 Z, who started from fifth position, lost his position in the chaos and finished the first lap in tenth position. On lap 9, between the 3rd and 4th corners, a GT300 class car collided with a GT500 class car, causing an accident involving the surrounding area. Consequently, the Z n. 24 was severely damaged in the rear and stopped, forcing it to retire. Also the n. 23 Z collided with a car that had avoided an accident and stopped in the pits. The damage was unexpectedly great and the repair took a long time. Immediately after this incident, the Z No. 3 has exhausted the drive-through inflicted for the contact on the first lap, losing many positions.

The Full Course Yellow (FCY), introduced due to an accident on lap 9, was brought into the safety car (SC) on lap 11, leaving the # 12 Z in 3rd position and the # 3 Z in 12th position. On lap 15 of the SC there was an accident where a GT300 class car collided on the main straight. At the end of lap 22, the # 3 Z made its pit stop, handing the driver over to Takaboshi, and finished refueling and changing tires. The speed and timing of the work in the pits helped the Z n. 3 to greatly improve its position. The # 12 Z made its pit stop after 23 laps. After changing driver in Hiramine, he finished his normal work and returned to the race maintaining his position. At the end of lap 26, number 12 Z ran in 3rd place and number 3 Z ran in 6th place. The n. 23 Z, who finished fixing the problem, is now 3 laps behind in 13th place.

In the second half of the race, the first teams were in a close battle. After 37 laps, when the top team makes its pit stop, # 12 Z is 1 second behind the top team in 2nd place, and # 3 Z is less than 1 second from the front car in 5th position . The GT300 behind the lap was involved and the situation continued to be difficult to overcome. On lap 51, the n. 3 Z overtook the car in front of the first corner and climbed back to 4th position. Further increase the pace and reduce the gap with the front. The race entered the final stages with a difference of about one second between the first and fourth places. Despite repeated back and forth, each held their position and finished the 63-lap race. After getting on the podium in 2nd place, the n. 12 Z exceeded no. 3 Z in the series rankings to become the champion. The N. 3 Z, who had recovered from behind due to the penalty, recovered his position in 4th place and finished in 2nd place in the series standings.

Having completed all eight races of the 2022 season, the all-new Nissan Z GT500 won three races, becoming the first Nissan / NISMO team series champion in seven years. We realized the speed and strength of the Nissan Z GT500 in the race and, as a result, we were able to take 1st and 2nd place in the series standings. The Nissan / NISMO team will do its best to ensure next season’s races are even more rewarding.

Kazuki Hiramine
“Thank you to all the fans for your support. We have finally won the championship. And I am truly grateful to the team, NISMO, Bridgestone and all of our sponsors. This is my third consecutive year with TEAM IMPUL. I wanted to win the championship in somehow and I didn’t want to lose. I was able to get this far. To be honest, I still don’t really feel it, but I’m really grateful to everyone who has supported TEAM IMPUL at any time. Thanks. “

Bertrand Baguette
“Thanks a lot to all of you. I’m really proud to be the champion. A lot of things happened during the first half of my stint. There was also a big accident when the safety car was introduced. In that situation, I believed in myself and I climbed up the position, and at the end of the day, Mr. Hiramine had a great run and led me to victory.I’m so happy, I still can’t believe it.Thanks to the fans, Nissan / NISMO, Bridgestone, Kazuyoshi Hoshino, the team and my teammates, I managed to overcome the pressure of the last month and win the championship.

Kazuyoshi Hoshino Director of TEAM IMPUL
“I would like to thank (the sponsor) Calsonic / Marelli. I am very grateful for the support of Calsonic / Marelli, Nissan, Bridgestone and everyone involved. The more I used it, the more I realized he was a really good driver. Hiramine developed the car before the others and showed me a tenacious drive that didn’t give up until the last lap. By the way, I feel like I had won the championship. Thanks a lot to all sponsors and fans. “

Motohiro Matsumura General Manager of the Nissan SUPER GT Team
“After a year of struggling with the new Z, I am very happy to be able to win the series championship for the first time in seven years as a Nissan / NISMO team. Our goal was to create a car that could prove its speed in track, and we were able to achieve this, and we would like to thank the development team, the teams who competed in the race and the fans who continued to support us.The Racing Division has its own team that manages cars, but we did same development and maintenance for all four machines, and among them, TEAM IMPUL brought us the wonderful result of winning the championship.The other three teams also improved their cooperation with the development group as they fought, and all of them they gained the strength to compete for the top positions. Although there were some unfortunate races, they finished in 1st and 2nd place. It was the result of the efforts of the entire Nissan group / NISMO, and I’m really happy that I was able to show this achievement to fans as General Manager. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all of you and thank you for your continued support of the Nissan / NISMO field. “

Nissan Z