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Shozo Watanabe has long been associated with motorsports through his position as head of product development for the R33 and R34 Skyline and the GT-R at Nissan Motor, and later as executive director of Nissan Motorsports International (NISMO). Currently, he flies around the world supporting NISMO President Ken'ichi Sasaki, an officer at Nissan Global Motorsports since 2002. In the Dakar Rally Project, Shozo Watanabe serves as a bridge between Japan, Europe and South Africa, performing a variety of work in areas such as vehicle development and team management. In early December, we caught him on a temporary visit back home after a long business trip to Europe and asked him about the Dakar Rally. Looking at your past career, it would seem that you have not had much to do with rally raids like the Dakar... "When I first joined Nissan Motor, we had participated in events like the Nihon Alpine Rally in a private role, but at that time awareness of rallies was limited to Monte Carlo! Later, a person I happened to work with at the Nissan Technical Center knew Jouji Takeda, who had participated in the Paris-Dakar Rally, so I was aware that there was such a competition…" |
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 Since July 2002, NISMO has overseen all of Nissan's global motorsports activities, and this includes involvement in JGTC (Japan GT Championship) vehicle development and rally raids too. "While Nissan Europe basically played the central part in rally raid activities, we were called on to take a supporting role. I first went to South Africa for testing. The test course in South Africa is more dirt than sandy desert, and the first time I saw real sand dunes was at the 2003 Paris-Dakar. The first time I set foot in Africa was the occasion of the South Africa tests, and I was surprised that our vehicles could be driven in those conditions. Later, on the Paris-Dakar rest day, when I pitched my tent and went to sleep in the desert I was surprised at how cold it was at night. The cold seemed to seep into my backbone and I couldn't sleep. It seems like that well-known Japanese song about the moon over the desert is not altogether true. (Laughs). I concluded that the desert is not such a romantic place." |
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 That would also have been your first involvement at motorsports in the desert. Are there aspects of it that are quite different from circuit racing? "Although the driving field is different, circuit races and rally raids are the same in the basic aspect of vehicle preparation — you prepare the vehicle to reach the goal as quickly as possible and to enable it to be driven fast. At the stage where you build the machine in accordance with the conditions for each category, actual race experience and knowhow are vital elements. So in rally raids, there are still many aspects that we have to learn about. For Nissan, motorsports are not about engineering, nor are they about fantasy. Rather, they occupy an important position as a marketing activity. Therefore, because we are entered in an event, we must aim to win it." |
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  Nissan has appointed Yoshio Ikemachi and Jun Mihashi, who came from a motorcycling background, as rookies, and through this training program for young Japanese drivers, hopes to reinforce its competitive capabilities. Is there indeed a strong desire to use Japanese drivers? "Yes, there is a desire to have Japanese in the driver's seat. And if we are to have Japanese at the wheel, then we want to train fresh people. On the other hand, in a major motorsports event like the Dakar Rally, some experience is also essential. Considering this, it was thought that the best trainees would be offroad motorcycle enduro riders, so Ikemachi and Mihashi were appointed. In 2004, they will participate in the T1 (production) class, but as we are also considering them as candidates for the works class, it is possible that, depending on their results, they will be driving works machines in 2005. Their training is proceeding smoothly, and in terms of technique, they have already reached a level where they can graduate from T1. In the motorcycle class they had already achieved results that would put them in the top class of privateers. And as motorcycle competitors have to do their own navigation while riding as you will be aware, we see their potential as being high. In terms of having the technique and mental attitude to get across the desert, using those two, who have ridden motorcycles, could be better than getting four-wheel race drivers used to the desert." |
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  You appointed WRC champion Colin McRae as a works member for 2004. Is McRae thinking of switching to rally raid like Vatanen? "Rather than switching as such, McRae himself seems to want to enjoy various categories of motorsports. One of these is participating in the 2004 Dakar Rally as a member of the Nissan works team. However, he has no particular experience of desert driving and in tests it seems he got stuck in the dunes. (Laughs.) But we hear he learned quickly because he is a WRC champion. The Dakar Rally, which is an event that moves across the desert with many machines competing, also functions as a kind of community that spills over the boundaries around the makers. But as a motorsports event, we cannot ignore the fact that we are also in it to win. In 2003, preparing the machines took some time and we only got to the start line at the last minute. But for 2004, testing has been sufficient and we have come to the event with a better put together system. We will be competing hotly with our rivals and I believe that we will achieve good results." |
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