OKAYAMA, Japan – NISMO drivers #ronniequintarelli and #tsugiomatsuda showed the determination that has scored six Super GT driver's championships between them in Sunday's opening round of the series at Okayama in Japan.
Despite only qualifying 14th, the pace of the duo, combined with quick work in the pits by the No. 23 crew, moved the team up to seventh place at the checkered flag.
The duo gained the most spots of any of the GT500 rivals as #nissan battled strong competition in the first round staged with the new-for-2017 technical specs.
"It was good that we scored four points with seventh place because we wanted to get points," said Quintarelli. "It came down to good timing on the pit stop. We were able to run without a lot of traffic on the in-lap. That, combined with the great pit stop work by the NISMO pit crew, and we were able to gain a couple of spots. This result will give us a bit of confidence, but we will all be working hard on improving the car."
Jann Mardenborough and Hironobu Yasuda combined to finish eighth with the former GT Academy winner and GT500 debutante impressing on debut.
Daiki Sasaki and JP de Oliveira completed the top 10 at Okayama, but sadly the Katsumasa Chiyo/Satoshi Motoyama entry failed to finish after Chiyo suffered a crash.
Mardenborough impresses on GT500 debut in Super GT
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