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NISMO wins Team Championship Title
for 3 Concecutive Years
2005 SUPER GT Round8 "SUZUKA GT 300km"
SUZUKA CIRCUIT (Mie) - November 6, 2005 |
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| Copyright © NISMO |
Super GT series reached its final round in Suzuka Circuit on Sunday November 6. In the midst of heavy rain, #1 Xanavi NISMO Z driven by Satoshi Motoyama and Richard Lyons started from 9th and won 2nd place podium finish. As a result, NISMO has clinched the Team Series Champion for three years in a row. The total spectators for this race were 35,500.
Due to the serious rainfall, the race was shortened to 39 laps (originally scheduled 52). Immediately after the safety car returned to the pit lane, both NISMO cars (#1 and #22) returned to their pit for driver change. This was the surprise strategy to take advantage of the "safety car start" short distance race by avoiding the conjestion. The starters Motoyama on #1 and Masataka Yanagida on #22 (Motul PITWORK Z, qualified 10th) both instantly switched to Lyons and Michael Krumm respectively for remaining laps. This made the cars sink in the back of the row at the beginning, but on lap 21 #1 Z came in 6th and #22 Z was in 8th place.
Soon the other teams that had not made their driver change returned for a pit stop, and the NISMO cars improved to 4th and 6th by lap 24. On lap 32, #1 Z was in 3rd place and when the last car returned to pit, the car was 2nd on lap 36. Lyons then started his fierce pursuit for #38 Supra ahead of him. Taking their position means a third consecutive driver's title. The gap between two cars was once more than 6 seconds, but on the final lap, Lyons cut it to 0.8 seconds. Yet, #38 Supra was aiming the same goal of champion, and did not allow anyone to take it away from them. The cars maintained their position until the checkered flag. #1 Z finished 2nd. Meanwhile, #22 Z driven by Krumm suffered from the heavy weight handicap of 60kgs that cost them the lack of speed at the end of the race. Although they once took 6th place, the car resulted in 8th place finish.
In spite of the hard crash during qualifying, Calsonic Impul Z (#12, Benoit Treluyer / Yuji Ide) managed to start the race from the rear most position of GT500 class. Treluyer started the race and came very close to #36 Supra that was the leader at the time. Nissan supporters on the grand stand were excited by his effort. The car pitted on lap 31, and the car was handed over to Yuji Ide, who was recovering from the crash. The car returned to track in 10th place, finished in 9th receiving the checkered flag. #3 G'ZOX HASEMI Z (Toshihiro Kaneishi /Erik Comas) started from 7th. The car came to 4th on lap 6, immediately after the safety car returned to pit. The car pitted on lap 13 and Kaneishi took over for remaining 2/3 of the race. He fought hard overtaking cars and finished 4th.
"I am so proud of Richard for his wonderful driving and the effort of the whole team which led the team to series champion," said Hiroshi Degawa, NISMO Team Director. "I believe that our strategy of changing the drivers in the very beginning was successful. It was a gamble, but it worked. I am glad to end the season by showing that we challenge until the last minute of the race, and that all our fans got excited for being with us all the way in this heavy rain. We thank you very much for your support."
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| Copyright © NISMO |
"Richard made an amazing pursuit. I was so excited watching the track monitor screen," said Satoshi Motoyama. "Although we missed the third consecutive driver's title, I'm still happy. At one point we all worried the rain was too hard for the race, but at the end of the day I'm glad we could show a very dramatic race to our enthusiastic fans."
"It was a good race," recalled Richard Lyons. "A bit disappointed really not winning the driver's champion but we're happy to win the team series title. I am very honored to make a contribution to the team"
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