Nissan and Nismo have unveiled their plans for motorsports in 2010 with an announcement today regarding the teams and cars to be featured in 2010 championships. In the Japanese SuperGT championships, Nismo’s field will shrink to just three teams down from four in 2009 which was five in 2008!
The 2010 GT500 specification Nissan GT-R will be raced by:
- #23 Nismo MOTUL Autech GT-R driven by Satoshi Motoyama and Benoit Treluyer
- #12 IMPUL Calsonic IMPUL GT-R driven by Tsugio Matsuda and Ronnie Quintarelli
- #24 KONDO RACING HIS ADVAN KONDO GT-R driven by Joao Paolo de Oliveira and Hironobu Yasuda
In the GT-R this year will be the brand new VRH34A 3.4 litre engine which replaces the outgoing VK45 V8 unit due to an update to the SuperGT rules. We’ll get you some technical details on the VRH34A as soon as we can.
As well as the SuperGT cars, Nismo will also be providing support to teams who will field their 2010 FIA GT1 Nissan GT-Rs abroad for the 2010 FIA GT Championships. Two teams will field two cars each in the series which kicks off mid April in the UAE at the Yas Marina Circuit.
We hope to see great things from the teams SumoPower GT and Swiss Racing Team and we’ll certainly be following their progress throughout the year.
Link: Nissan Motorsports Website
Link: SumoPowerGT Website
FIA GT Championship, GTR News, Motor Racing, Motoring News, Nissan News, Super GT
FIA GT Championship, gt-r, gt1, gt500, gtr, jgtc, Nismo, nissan, Super GT
If you’re a manufacturer of anything even remotely sporty these days you’re no doubt testing at the Nurburgring. Fine tuning and tweaking the performance because of just how well the Nurburgring represents a wide variety of driving conditions.
You wont be the only one testing your final product there however because, if it’s a real sports car, then Germany’s Sport Auto magazine will put it to their famous Supertest.
The Nissan GT-R had to do it and passed with flying colours setting a 7:38 laptime with editor Horst von Saurma (HvS) behind the wheel. Well now the Corvette ZR1’s time has come to be put to the same test.
Despite the weight and power advantage over the GT-R, the ZR1 only managed to equal the GT-R’s 7:38 lap time on the 13 mile long Nordschliefe circuit in the hands of the same test driver, HvS.
Quite an interesting data point this considering each manufacturer previously set times in the 7:26 region. To then set a 7:38 in an independent test…
Other tracks were also compared in the German article, the ZR1 beating out the GT-R’s Hockenheimring laptime (1:09.7 to the GT-R’s 1:10.7) and then the ZR1 losing out to the GT-R in the wet handling course (1:36.8 to the GT-R’s 1:32.4).
Link: Sport Auto Magazine Website
Source: NAGTROC Forums
Magazines/DVD/Books, Motoring News
gt-r, gtr, nissan, nordschliefe, nurburgring, r35, zr1
East Texas Muscle Cars is where you can point and begin laughing as they reckon they’ve got the know how to slap together a GT-R killing Camaro based on the cooking variety V6. Edmunds Inside Line is reporting that the V6 will be upgraded with forged internals and a remote mount turbo kit. Add to that a few other off the shelf tuning parts and they think they can tweak it to 500hp and slay the GT-R at the Nurburgring.
Their answer to improving the Camaro’s handling … ?
Other changes include a Baer big brake kit, lightweight 20-inch iForged wheels and Pedders coil-overs and bushings to address “the stock Camaro’s tremendous understeer and cradle walk.”
Edmunds Inside Line
I really gotta hand it to these guys in Texas, they brightened up my Friday with this. Whatever they’re smoking get me some.
Link: Edmunds Inside Line – Read the full story
Image: Autoblog – Click to see their gallery
Edmunds, Magazines/DVD/Books, Motoring News, Random / Lazy Sunday
camaro, Edmunds, gt-r, gtr, joke, nissan, r35
When you’ve got thousands of tourists attacking your public race track each year you’re going to run into the odd occasion when someone makes an error. If that error gets serious you’re going to want to be able to get to the scene of an incident quickly. On a 20km circuit like the Nordschliefe this is no job for an ordinary fire truck.
So proving to the world it’s not only one of the worlds fastest production cars ever to lap the ‘Ring, it’s now the most practical after receiving a full “fire engine” conversion.
That’s right, the car is fitted with a fire retardant tank fully consuming the rear passenger area, followed by a functional hose reel and equipment bay in the trunk. The car is also kitted out with a full roll cage and carbon fibre Recaro racing seats for safety. This is no joke!
Photographs used with permission.
Images/Source: NissanSportz.com – Is This The World’s Fastest Roadgoing Fire Engine?
GTR News, Motoring News
fire truck, gtr, nissan, nurburgring, rrv
The assault on the Nurburgring for 2009 has begun as promised. After just a few testing days Nissan Chief Test Driver Toshio Suzuki-san has managed to beat his previous best of 7:29 in a base model series II Nissan GT-R with a 7:27.56 lap. The car was standard except for being fitted with optional Nismo ClubSport package Rays 20″ forged aluminium wheels. Dunlop tires were fitted to the Rays wheels.
The laptime was set at 6.52pm on the 15th of April. Ambient temperature was 21 degrees C, track temp was 26 degrees and relative humidity was 25%. They’re back out again today trying to go faster again.
As promised, to keep everything above board, members of the press were in attendance as well as representatives from Porsche Stuttgart.
Why exactly they’re using this combination of wheels and tires we will hope to find out soon. We’re also chasing up some further imagery to show you. As for the photo you see above – it is not the car in question but is a SpecV Nissan GT-R being tested at the Nurburgring earlier this week.
Source: NissanSportz.com
Photo: Mark aus Moers
GTR News, Motoring News, Nissan News
7:27, gt-r, gtr, nordscheilfe, nurburgring, r35, suzuki, toshio suzuki
We are proud to announce that Zele International (Yokohama, Japan) has completed their brand new online project, ZelePerformance.com and has launched it this week to the public. This latest website will cover latest news releases, global parts information, Zele’s own blog as well as dealer listings and corporate information all in English for the global GT-R community.
Zele International was first established in early 2000 as an independent Nissan Skyline specialised dealership in Kanagawa prefecture Japan. Since forming, Zele International’s reputation among GT-R owners worldwide has grown and grown due to their track record for delivering exceptional quality vehicles to customers from all corners of the globe.
In 2004, Zele International formed a business partnership with Nissan Motorsports (NISMO) and opened Nismo Car’s Factory Zele further cementing their status as the number one Nissan Skyline GT-R dealership.
Since the launch of the Nissan R35 GT-R supercar, Zele International has been heavily involved in the development of unique, functional and desirable products to suit and has gained a position as one of the top original parts developers for the Nissan GT-R. These products can now be found as far reaching as Japan, SE Asia, the Middle East, USA and Europe.
Head on over to visit the new website at the link below and stay tuned for more from Zele International, ZelePerformance.com and from GTRBlog.com.
Link: ZelePerformance.com
Photos: Zele International – From: Track Test at Ebisu Circuit w/ Suspension Tuning by Tarzan Yamada – View the full gallery and story here
GTR News, Motoring News, Zele International
Some people can really nail things on the head when they write about the GT-R and I think Adam from StreeFire has done just that. Recently he took delivery of his new 2009 Nissan GT-R to replace his E46 BMW M3 and has had the pleasure of running it in during tropical storm Fay’s road drenching conditions.
Great writeup and a must read with a lot of good things to say about the GT-R so go and check it out.
Cheers to Adam for the mention/link too.
Link: 2009 Nissan GT-R review, Part 1 Delivery
GTR News, Motoring News
Far be it for us to discount just how good the new Corvetter ZR-1 is. Even if it does look a bit silly with some kind of bonnet window (to keep an eye on your oil leaks?) and is made of recycled Pepsi bottles. It certainly can lap Nurburgring fast that’s for damn sure as today GM have announced they’ve managed a 7 minute 26 lap of the ‘Ring. Congratulations to those folk and I hope they keep at it and bring the time down even further.
It’s beginning to be extremely clear that you no longer need $250,000 to drive insanely fast and that $100,000 or even $70,000 will cut it these days.
Source: Autoblog
GTR News, Motoring News
Honda boss Takeo Fukui has thrown down the gauntlet and demanded results at the famed Nurburgring from the engineers working on the new 2011 NSX. This front engine V10 powered Japanese supercar has made it’s first public appearance in Germany bearing full camouflage. The NSX is going to be a tough competitor for the GT-R with an expected 550 hp and Honda’s SH-AWD system getting the power the ground and in fact the CEO wont be happy until it beats the GT-R’s record 7 minute 29 second laptime.
Source: Edmunds Inside Line
Motoring News
It’s been going around for a little while now that in Top Gear season 11 Clarkson, Hammond and May head to Japan for the best race yet but until now it has only been speculation of what they actually race. It was published by BBC news on Tuesday that Jeremey Clarkson has revealed that the advesary this season is the reknowned shinkansen – bullet trains – of Japan.
One can guess which car they chose to pit it against, the one and only Nissan GT-R is the most likely candidate. Season 11 begins June 22nd on BBC in the UK.
Source: Final Gear forums
GTR News, Motoring News
