Nissan Explains Thinking Behind NISMO Driver Choice

Photo: Nissan

Nissan has shed light on its decision-making process for its works SUPER GT lineups this season, with age and experience proving key factors in Daiki Sasaki’s surprise promotion from the GT300 ranks to the No. 3 NISMO NDDP car.

Sasaki, 33, has been handed the chance to return to the Nissan GT500 stable after having been effectively demoted to the lower GT300 class this time a year ago, as he spent 2024 sharing a Kondo Racing Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 with Joao Paulo de Oliveira.

He will partner Atsushi Miyake in the No. 3 as Mitsunori Takaboshi moves across to the sister No. 23 car to replace the now-retired Ronnie Quintarelli.

Toshikazu Tanaka, who is sharing the role of Nissan’s SUPER GT executive director with Shinichi Kiga this year (having previously held the title in 2016-18), said that Sasaki’s prior experience of Bridgestone tires was a decisive factor in his re-promotion.

Tanaka told Sportscar365: “The starting point was to decide who would replace Ronnie [in No. 23] and we decided on Takaboshi because the rivals we have to beat are very strong and we felt we needed to have two ‘ace’ drivers sharing the same car.

“That meant taking Takaboshi out of the No. 3 car, and because we had already decided to keep Miyake, we had to work out who would partner Miyake, and Sasaki was a candidate because of his many years of GT500 experience.

“He also has experience of Bridgestone tires from when he drove for Team Impul [in 2018-20] and we felt his driving style would be a match for Miyake.”

Tanaka, who formerly served as team director for the No. 3 car when it was run by B-Max Racing in 2019-21, said that both Teppei Natori, who stays in the No. 24 Kondo Racing car for another year, and de Oliveira were also considered.

But he said that Natori’s lack of experience and de Oliveira’s age counted against them.

“Natori was also a candidate, we recognize his potential, and it’s not like that having two youngsters together in No. 3 was not an option for us,” said Tanaka.

“But we felt that the chance for him to develop the Yokohama tires together with Matsuda is not an experience you can get at any time, so finally we decided to keep him alongside Matsuda for one more year to sharpen up his tire development skills.”

On de Oliveira, Tanaka added: “JP is a great driver and one of the best in GT300 right now.

“On the other hand, we have to consider not only this year but also the future when we decide our lineups, and one of the issues is the age of the drivers.

“We rate him highly and I think that it’s amazing he has such potential even approaching his mid-40s. We respect him a lot. It’s just that we went down a different path.”

Nissan Hopeful Z NISMO’s “Weak Points” Fixed

Nissan is going into its second season with the revised Z NISMO GT500 car, which scored a single victory at Fuji last year as Takaboshi and Miyake finished third overall.

The Yokohama-based marque struggled in certain conditions last season, particular in higher temperatures, partly as a result of the last-minute rule change for 2024 that saw the ride height for all GT500 cars increased by five milimeters.

Kiga, who remains in overall charge of Nissan’s technical development while Tanaka handles sporting matters, admitted that this year’s aero freeze means the scope for development is limited, but feels progress has been made in winter testing so far.

“Last year we had our good points and our bad points, but we have been analyzing the bad points, and we have testing with the objective of maintaining the good points while addressing some of the weaknesses,” said Kiga.

“The car was quite ‘peaky’ last year and it was easy to fall outside of the ideal operating window, so we have been considering how to widen that window.

“The results at Sepang were pretty good, but we found some areas of improvement which we tried to fix at Okayama. Of course it depends on the circuit and the conditions, but right now I’d say we are progressing as we hoped.

“It feels like we should have the weak points fixed in time for Okayama [Round 1].”

Official testing begins next weekend at Okayama ahead of the first race at the same venue on April 11-13.