IT was a top ten finish for all Nissan GT-Rs in last weekend’s fourth round of the FIA GT1 World Championship held at the Sachsenring in Germany.
The pairing of Enrique Bernoldi and Warren Hughes, in the no.20 Sumo Power GT-R, finished as top Nissan in fourth, a place ahead of team-mates David Brabham and Jamie Campbell-Walter in the no.21 car. Peter Dumbreck and Richard Westbrook, in the no.22 car, were the top ranking JR Motorsports in seventh place, whilst Lucas Luhr and Michael Krumm finished ninth in the no.23.
However, the before the race began, the GT-Rs qualified higher than their final finishing result. With cars jostling on the start/finish straight as the race began, the GT-Rs fell back to their eventual finishing places.
Speaking afterwards, Warren Hughes, said: ‘I’m very happy. Over the course of the weekend, considering how GT-R unfriendly Sachsenring is, we probably got the absolute best result we could have done, short of the top three cars in front of us failing.
‘It’s probably fair to say that the car wasn’t as strong today as yesterday (qualifying), as the track conditions were a bit different – slightly cooler. The sweet spot of a car is so small that tiny factors like that can make a difference, and as such we lost a little bit of performance. Overall though, I’m delighted with my personal performance as well as that of the team, and once again it feels great to be the top ranked Nissan car, because everyone knows the calibre of our drivers.’
Round five of the GT1 World Championship, at Silverstone, will take place on the weekend of the June 4-5, 2011.