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GT1 GT-R Driver Henry Moser Shows the Porsche Crowd a Thing or Two at Paul Ricard
As far as displays on why the GT-R is a great party pooper to take along to Porsche track days it doesn’t get much better than this. Take a GT3 world champ and GT1 racing driver like Henry Moser, give him the keys to your mildly tweaked GT-R and let ‘er rip. This video is the result.
Thanks to Philippe the owner of the car for the heads up and for giving Henry the drive.
You can see more of Moser’s skills when he pilots the 2010 GT1 spec GT-R for Swiss Racing Team in Abu Dhabi for round one of the FIA GT1 World Championships in just 20 days time!
FIA GT 2010: Sumo Power GT Announce Drivers for Second GT-R
As we get closer and closer to the first race of the season, Sumo Power GT have confirmed their full driver lineup for the 2010 season. Along with Michael Krumm and Peter Dumbreck who were previously confirmed back in February, Warren Hughes and Jamie Campbell-Walter will also drive the 600 hp R35 2010 GT1 spec car this year.
Both drivers got to take the GT-R for a spin this week at Snetterton Circuit in Norfolk, England and immediately felt the potential of the new car.
Warren Hughes is a veteran GT racer who’s spent the past nine years in either GT or Touring car racing, won LeMans in the LMP2 category and entered another five 24 Hours of LeMans. A busy man no doubt and he’s excited to be on the team driving the GT-R.
“When I first heard about the FIA GT1 World Championship and the venues it visits I immediately wanted to be involved … Once I had been invited to test with the Sumo Power GT team I was really hoping that I would be offered a seat, so to finally secure a drive is a fantastic opportunity.”
– Warren Hughes, Sumo Power GT Driver
Jamie is no first timer either having spent the last 13 years racing in FIA GT, British GT Champs as well as five forays into the 24 Hours of LeMans race.
“I’m over the moon to be get the drive with Sumo Power GT this season and it’s great to be involved with a new championship and a new team right from the start. I’m looking forward to being back in a GT Championship, especially one which visits so many good circuits in so many different countries.”
– Jamie Campbell-Walter, Sumo Power GT Driver
The next outing for the new R35s and drivers is coming up at Silverstone Circuit next week during the last testing session before the teams pack up and head to Abu Dhabi for round one.
Link: Sumo Power GT Website
Link: FIA GT World Championships Website
Source: Planet LeMans
FIA GT 2010: Season Launch in Paris – Swiss Racing Team Livery Uncovered
Swiss Racing Team has unveiled their FIA GT1 spec Nissan GT-R’s race livery in a ceremony to launch the 2010 FIA GT season at the Automobile Club de France in the Place de la Concorde, in Paris on Monday.
Up until now in testing the car has been seen in stark white so to see it finally in Swiss Racing Team red and white, while not a huge change, is great.
The Sumo Power GT-R on the other hand had already been seen in testing. Their livery was on show at the Paul Ricard HTTT and it too has a strong white theme with lots of exposed carbon.
The first race of the season is coming up fast and is set for the 17th of April in Abu Dhabi. You’ll be able to watch it live online via GT1world.com.
Link: Swiss Racing Team Website
Link: Sumo Power GT Website
Link: GT1World.com Photo Gallery
FIA GT 2010: Swiss Racing Team’s First Tests of Their New GT-R
The Swiss Racing Teams brand new Nismo FIA GT1 Nissan GT-Rs are in Europe and the three team drivers were able to get them out on the circuit for their first test.
The test took place in Portugal at the Algarve Circuit and even in the poor weather conditions the drivers Karl Wendlinger, Henri Moser and Max Nilsson were able to set a good pace.
“Both NISSAN’s are perfect, and the drivers are handling them very well … Karl Wendlinger and Henri Moser are working together very well. It is perfect that they are almost of the same height, which will be an advantage in the driver change.â€
– Team Director, Othmar Welti
For the second car, driver Max Nilsson shared the cockpit with potential fourth teammate Cesar Campanico and also showed outstanding performance. The final decision on the fourth driver for the Swiss Racing Team has not been made yet however.
While testing and car setup could not be fully completed due to the bad weather, the team will get another chance at the next test at Paul Ricard HTT circuit in France on February the 21st – 22nd.
Link: Swiss Racing Team
SuperGT 2010: Nissan Launch GT500 GT-R Teams for 2010 and New Engine
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-1 Spec Nissan GT-R Teams Announced for FIA GT 2010 Championships
After finalising the specifications of the GT1 class Nissan GT-R and signing the official FIA GT partnership agreements, Nismo has been able to confirm that two teams will field it’s 600hp GT1 car in this years FIA GT championship series.
The teams are Swiss Racing Team headed by Othmar Welti and British team Sumo Power GT led by James Rumsey. Each team will field two cars a piece which means 4 of the 24 GT1 cars on the grid later in the year will be Nissan GT-Rs. Unfortunately, the Gigawave Motorsports team who partnered with Nismo in 2009 to test and help develop the car had to pull out of FIA GT championships this year.
Sumo Power had their GT1 machine at Autosport International show in Birmingham, UK last week so the public could get a good look. We also had a very up close look recently at the 2009 Nismo Festival at Fuji Speedway, Japan. Check out our feature article on this beast here.
The first race kicks off in May at Silverstone Circuit, we’ll keep you informed of the GT-Rs performance!
Top Photo: Jakob Ebrey
Nismo Festival 2009: FIA GT GT1 Specification Nissan GT-R Up Close and Personal
Nismo Festival is here again and although it officially doesn’t start until tomorrow, we’ve been able to, with thanks to help from Nismo get some unprecidented access to get under the skin of the 2010 GT1 specification Nissan GT-R.
A total of three GT1 spec GT-Rs are at Fuji Speedway less than 100 meters from me as I type this from the media center. I was up at 5:30am this morning to get this chance to get some interesting shots of the car without any members of the general public around. So I hope you enjoy these.
There’s 62 photos in total I’ve selected for this article so go ahead and click the read more link below to browse. I’m sure you can keep yourself busy for quite a while picking up on the finer details.
I’ll be making a post shortly on interesting points I noticed myself…
Link: Nismo FIA GT1 @ Nismo Festival 2009 – Photo Gallerty
Nissan Motorsports Wallpaper Collection 2009 – SuperGT and FIA GT Wallpapers
Nismo and Nissan have given motorsports fans a bit of an early Christmas gift this year by releasing a few new wallpapers from SuperGT and FIA GT championship season. I’ve hosted up the new ones and some classics from 2009 and 2008 as well.
Enjoy and if you have any GT-R art of your own, we’ll be making another wallpapers post around Christmas time so if you want it out there, send it in.
FIA GT 2009: Nissan GT-R Shows Some Great Pace in Final Round
After qualifying for 8th place on the grid for today’s final FIA GT round for 2009, the GT-R was making some great pace in the race. This round would be used to test the development of the car so far, in particular, the latest aero upgrades and new rear wing.
By the 33rd lap Michael Krumm was in 4th position overall and pitted for a driver change. Shortly after Darren Turner took the wheel however he began to notice odd readings in the tire pressure sensors. A rear brake caliper had stuck and was generating a lot of heat causing the tire pressure to rise.
The team changed out the caliper to correct the problem but the time taken to do so had put them out of competition for a great finish.
“The car felt even better today and was going so well. It is such a disappointment that we had this brake problem. It is easily fixed, and will not be a problem in future, but for this race it is such a shame. We could have finished… well, I don’t know where, but it could have been a really good result for us.”
– Michael Krumm, Nismo Driver
The team will continue development of the Nissan GT-R 2010 GT1 spec car to begin competitive championship racing in FIA GT season 2010. We’ll keep you posted when we find out which teams will be fielding them next year.
Click the Read More link below to read the full race report from Nismo…
Photos: (C) DPPI via FIA GT
FIA GT: Nismo GT1 GT-R to Appear at Final FIA GT Round 2009
FIA GT Championships for 2009 is set to wrap up at the conclusion of round 8 this coming weekend of the 24th and 25th of October. The race, to be held at Zolder Circuit in Belgium, will also be the last of the four rounds that Nismo will enter the 2010 GT1 spec Nismo GT-R into for 2009.
The Nismo team will use Zolder in order to further enhance development for the completion of customer spec cars. Next year, the car will return in the hands of race teams to join the competitive field of 2010 FIA GT World Champions GT1 class cars.
We were able to improve the GT-R further since the Spa round and are now getting much closer to where we want the car to be for next year’s FIA GT1 World Championship. Of course development will continue, but I believe we have a very good baseline now and it will be interesting to see how our car handles the very challenging Zolder circuit.
– Michale Krumm, NISMO
Following on from their great success at the 24hrs of Spa in July, the team has held three private test sessions in England to continue tweaking and preparing the car for performance and durability so they’re keen to see how it does.
The changes to the car that will be seen at Zolder include some aero revisions and a new rear wing design.
Click the Read More link below to read the full press release from Nismo…
Source: Nismo
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