Nissan had a strong run in the latest round of the Japanese Super GT Championship with Ronnie Quintarelli and Tsugio Matsuda charging onto the podium in second place at Fuji International Speedway.
The result was the first podium of the season for the No.23 Motul-backed car and the second race in a row where a Nissan GT-R NISMO GT500 machine has finished second. Former GT Academy winner Jann Mardenborough and Hiro Yasuda also had a strong run at Fuji into fifth place.
“In the early stages of the race the balance of the car wasn’t that great but as the race progressed the road surface conditions got better and about 10 laps before pitting it became much easier to drive and I was able to push pretty hard,” Quintarelli said.
“Although we probably could have pushed the pit timing out a little bit, I could see the traffic in front of me so I think we made a good decision in the end.
“Our strategy and pit work were good. We’ve achieved one of our goals, to get to the podium, and things are very close in the point rankings. We will be putting everything we have into the final races to make sure we are in the fight for the championship.”
Matsuda held off great pressure from third place in the later stages before closing down in on the race leader in the dying moments of the race.
“There were a number of times when the back markers appeared at really unfortunate moments but I was able to fend off the No. 38 in those instances,” Matsuda said.
“It was one of the more difficult races I’ve had in a while. Still, it was good to get our first podium of the season. We will be fighting hard to be amongst the top group at Suzuka despite our heavy handicap weight.”
Quintarelli and Matsuda are one of only three cars to have finished in the points in every race so far this season and now sit in fifth place in the points – only three points off the lead.
The next race in the Super GT Championship – another event live streamed on NISMO.tv – is the Suzuka 1000km on August 26.
