Photo: Nissan Motorsport

Nissan commits to V8 Supercars for two more years

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Nissan has committed for to further years in the V8 Supercars with the Nissan Motorsport team, owned by the brothers Rick and Todd Kelly.

“Motorsport is in the DNA of Nissan, both here in Australia and globally,” said Nissan Motor Co. (Australia) Managing Director and CEO Richard Emery.

“When Nissan first opened for business in Australia in 1966, one of the first things we did was to go motor racing. Our motorsport program is a way for us to show people what the Nissan brand stands for – through the excitement of our race cars and the innovative and inclusive nature of our fan activations.”

The manufacturer also confirmed that Michael Caruso is going to drive the #23 Nissan in the 2017 and 2018 V8 Supecars.

“I’m really excited to continue with Nissan and particularly with everyone at Nissan Motorsport,” said Caruso. “We’ve been working really hard over the last four years to get into the position of competing for race wins and I look forward to continuing that into the future. It was a pretty easy to decision to commit with Nissan and Nisan Motorsport. We’ve always had a strong relationship where we all get along and have a good idea of where we’re heading. It’s great to be a part of Nissan into the future.”

Nissan re-entered the championship in 2013 but has since then failed to make a serious challenge for the title.

“It is fair to say that it’s been a tough road in the early years,” said Emery to speedcafe.com. “There have been plenty of people criticise our program, the Nissan Motorsport program and a perceived lack of success. Rest assured we have not been comfortable with our race results either. We intend to finish what we started in Supercars.”

The team will continue with the Nissan Altima, using the current V8 engine despite the new Gen2 regulations allowing for other engines and body shapes from next year. However, an evaluation for a new package from 2019 will shortly begin.

“We’ve agreed to undertake a process with global starting quite soon to develop what an alternate package would look like under Gen2 rules for 2019 onwards. At this point in time I can’t see that we’d be ready for 2018. So I think it’d be 2019 unless something drastically changed for next year,” said Emery.