James Moffat and Taz Douglas salvage top ten for Nissan in tricky race

Nissan had a tough 2015 Bathurst, unable to replicate their podium grabbing form from last year, but James Moffat and Taz Douglas snared a top ten result after problems befell their three team-mates in the 161 lap race.

The #23 car of Michael Caruso and Dean Fiore lost time early on after a drive-through penalty was handed to them after Fiore was deemed to have been weaving too vigorously behind the safety car. Fiore was later “roughly handled” by HRT’s Garth Tander at Griffin’s Bend, pushed wide by the former champion, and the pair would finish the race 13th.

Rick Kelly and David Russell would finish 16th, forced to double stack behind team-mates Todd Kelly and Alex Buncombe three times as the field pitted behind the safety car interventions, while the #7 car of Todd Kelly and Alex Buncombe itself had a race to forget, losing a lap due to a mechanical black flag for loose bodywork early on and eventually sustained further damage after Kelly hit the wall at the top of the mountain.

“The team did a fantastic job all day,” said Moffat. “To finish tenth is not what we came here for but we did everything we could today and tenth is all we had, so we’ll take that for what it is and we have a straight car so that’s good.

“When it was wet there the car was quite strong, we just didn’t have any track position at that stage. I was in the car with about five or ten laps to go thinking that a bit of wet weather might be good for us but it never came.

“Thanks to Taz, he did a great job and brought the car back in one piece.”