Nissan Motorsports: Sonoma Raceway Pirelli GT4 America Recap

Nissan Motorsports (NISMO) kicked off the 2024 Pirelli GT4 America championship season at Sonoma Raceway with great expectations, and was rewarded with strong performances including a pair of podium finishes. 

The two-car TechSport Racing team has returned for 2024, joined by single car Nissan Z NISMO GT4 entries from Blackdog Racing and Flying Lizard Motorsports, giving Nissan three teams with championship pedigrees.

Problems with the track surface meant the Friday practice sessions were cancelled as track repairs were made, compressing a three-day schedule into two, and eliminating valuable track time for the two new Nissan teams.  The Saturday morning practice session set the grid positions for both the Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning races.

Mike Carcamo, Program Director, Sports, NISMO, Infiniti, and Motorsports, Nissan Motor Corporation recapped the weekend, “It was a very important debut for the evolution kit for the Nissan Z NISMO GT4.  The start of the weekend was rough as track conditions limited our running time, but the teams made the best of it.  We could tell that the pace of the car was there considering the depth of the GT4 field.  We couldn’t have had a better start than race #1 with the front row sweep and podium finishes in both the Silver and Pro-Am classes.  Race #2 was more difficult.  We were in the hunt for the lead until we detected some smoke and we pulled the car for a potential issue in the engine.  Clearly, we showed that the car has pace and we’ll be focusing on reliability.  We also appreciate the effort from newest Nissan teams from Flying Lizard and Blackdog Racing, who suffered from the cancelled Friday sessions to learn their new race car.”     

Eric Powell who started from the pole in race #1 and scored the fastest race lap in race #2 noted that, “It was an interesting weekend with very little practice time. Our knowledge from developing this platform last year definitely helped us. The car is very different from the 2023 development car.  It’s a step up in every way and I think we showed that this weekend. We didn’t exactly get the results we hoped but we proved the car is very fast and can fight for wins. Our time is coming very soon!  The car truly felt amazing today. I was loving it.”

Race #1 Highlights:

TechSport Racing made it an all-Nissan front row with Eric Powell and Jonathan Nuedorf leading the 30-car field across the starting line.  Powell set the pace early on, stretching out a 3.5 second lead before the driver change pit stops began.  Meanwhile Jonathan ran strong before handing off the Michai Stephens.  A few minutes later Powell handed off to Colin Harrison.  At the end of the race, the team were each rewarded with a podium finish, Neudorf/Stephens placing third in the Silver class with Powell/Harrison third in the Pro-Am class.      

Race #2 Highlights:

Two Z’s started from the top ten on Sunday morning, with Michai Stephens starting second in the #23 TechSport Nissan Z NISMO GT4 and Michael Cooper sixth overall in the #9 Blackdog Nissan Z NISMO GT4.  Stephens ran with the front pack before handing off to Jonathan Neudorf.  Neudorf was challenging for the lead with just ten minutes left when the car started to smoke and the team retired the car.  Colin Harrison turned the #22 TechSport Nissan Z NISMO GT4 over Eric Powell who set the fastest race lap on the way to a fifth -place finish in the Pro-Am class. 

Results:

Off the track, Nissan kicked off the Sonoma weekend with an informal Z NISMO tech talk for the MidCal section of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), the Z Owners of Northern California (ZONC), and media at the Z Car Garage in San Jose.  Nissan hosted a Nissan only ZONC car corral at the Sonoma Raceway on Saturday.

The 2024 Pirelli GT4 America championship consists of seven double-header weekends at some of the most challenging racetracks in North America.