2024.12.01

Quintarelli greets the NISSAN fans and announces his retirement from SUPER GT as of the Season’s Final Round! NISMO FESTIVAL is held at Fuji Speedway

　On December 1st, the NISMO FESTIVAL 2024, organized by Nissan Motorsports & Customizing Co., Ltd. (NMC), was held at Fuji Speedway. Despite a chill in the air from early morning, the day was blessed with fair skies and increasing warmth in the air as the event approached the afternoon, thus making for comfortable day for the some 28,500 who turned out for the event, making for a larger crowd than last year. With this season’s SUPER GT Round 5 at Suzuka having to be postponed due to a typhoon and then rescheduled for December 7th and 8th as the final Round of the 2024 series, the SUPER GT cars that will be competing in that round were only able to make a parade run this time at Fuji, but the other events specially planned to celebrate this momentous 40th Anniversary of NISMO made the overall contents of the festival just as exciting as ever.

 

 

【GT500 Class Drivers Talk Show】

 

　The first of the SUPER GT related contents to be held was a GT500 Class Drivers Talk Show featuring eight drivers, including the No. 3 Niterra MOTUL Z drivers Mitsunori Takaboshi and Atsushi Miyake, the No. 12 MARELLI IMPUL Z driver pair of Kazuki Hiramine and Bertrand Baguette, the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH Z pair of Katsumasa Chiyo and Ronnie Quintarelli, and the No. 24 REALIZE CORPORATION ADVAN Z drivers Tsugio Matsuda and Teppei Natori. Including the fact that this talk was held before the season’s final, and the announcement that Ronnie Quintarelli would be retiring from SUPER GT as of this season, the contents of the talk show this time were quite different from other years. The opening talk theme was “Looking Back on the Season” which, besides delighting the NISSAN fans with a rich variety of laughable incidents mentioned, as well as comments by all of the drivers about how they hope to end the season well.
　The next theme was “Memorable Recollections of Quintarelli” which included things like a memory by Hiramine of how much he respected Quintarelli as a driver when he came up to him after a race in which he had collided with the No. 23 car and unexpectedly told him, “Good job.” Other comments included one by Katsumasa Chiyo saying that when he himself was a Kart racer as a kid, he looked up to Ronnie as the top Kart racer, and then added with a laugh that it was Tsugio who stole the best years (as Ronnie’s teammate) but he was still glad to be able to pair with Ronnie in this last season; and one by Teppei Natori, who admitted that when he was being taught about Kart racing as a kid by Ronnie, he didn’t even know that he was already a professional driver; and another by Tsugio Matsuda, who began driving on the same team as Ronnie in 2014 and promised himself that he would study how Ronnie trained so that he could help win the championship, and in fact that dream came true.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

【Talk Show Race Version for the 40th Anniversary of the NISMO Brand】

 

　This time the Talk Show Race Version celebrating the 40th Anniversary of NISMO was divided into two product blocks. Four representatives spoke, including Corporate Vice President Toshikazu Tanaka of Nissan Motorsports & Customizing Co., Ltd., Team Principal Takeshi Nakajima of the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH Z team, Team Principal Masahiko Kondo of the No. 24 REALIZE CORPORATION ADVAN Z team, and the legendary driver of the JGTC era Skyline GT-R, Toshio Suzuki. Each of the four spoke with passion about the story of NISMO, which began from the Daytona 24 Hours.

 

 

  

 

 

 

【Circuit Safari】

 

　The Circuit Safari is an event that enables the fans to watch the racing machines running at full speed from the windows of a tourist bus running along beside them at trackside. This attraction that gives the fans an up-close experience of the racing cars’ awesome performance is always tremendously popular at the NISMO FESTIVAL. Unlike Circuit Safaris run during a SUPER GT or other race weeks, the appearance of historic models from different NISSAN/NISMO categories made it a special treat for the NISSAN fans.
　Riding along with the fans in the three buses while serving as guides to explain the intricacies of running the Fuji course and relating past episodes of great races by NISSAN cars, were Team Principal Masahiko Kondo of the No. 24 REALIZE CORPORATION ADVAN Z team, Team Principal Jiro Shimada of the No. 3 Niterra MOTUL Z team and Team Principal Takeshi Nakajima of the No. 23 MOTUL AUTECH Z team. Also riding on Team Principal Masahiko Kondo’s bus was the NISMO Ambassador Kunihiko Kakimoto, who added some especially “insider” commentary to the delight of the fans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

【Welcoming Ceremony】

 

　In the Welcoming Ceremony for the NISMO FESTIVAL that lines up the attending NISSAN drivers and Team Principals in front of the home straight to greet the fans, this time it was the head of Nissan's Motorsports Business Unit and president of NMC, Takao Katagiri who gave the welcoming address. In it, he said it was unfortunate that none of the NISSAN teams that had competed for the championship title this season remained in contention for that title and apologized to the fans who had cheered them on. He added, however, that car No. 3 still had a chance to win the Team Championship. Katagiri then concluded by asking the fans to continue to cheer for the teams as they seek to show the rivals the inherent speed of the NISMO Z in next week’s final race.
　Next to speak as representative of the NISSAN drivers was Katsumasa Chiyo, saying first of all that he believed it was not the drivers and the team staff members but the loyal fans that have made the 40-year history of NISMO possible. He then concluded by saying that all of the drivers will do their best to continue to show the fans a strong NISMO and a NISMO that wins races.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

【Pit Walk】

 

　This time, a Pit Walk was held for the first time at a NISMO FESTIVAL. For it, a full array of not only the present cars competing in SUPER GT and the other categories but also historic cars of the past were lined up in front of the pits. And there to sign autographs for the fans in the always-popular attraction were the drivers, Team Principals and legendary drivers of the past.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

【NISMO HERITAGE RUN】

 

　As a demonstration run to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of NISMO this time, the NISMO HERITAGE RUN included two GT500 class championship-winning cars of the past, the 2004 XANAVI NISMO Z and the 2008 XANAVI NISMO GT-R. Driving the Z was Masataka Yanagida, while Satoshi Motoyama drove the GT-R, making the two cars unique and nostalgic roar echoed across the Fuji Speedway track once again. Motoyama commented that the car was so well maintained that it was just as easy to drive as in the past and that it brought back nostalgic memories of the time the car won the championship in its debut season of 2008.

 

 

 

 

 

 

【Finale】

 

　The standout figure in this year’s Finale was none other than Ronnie Quintarelli, who has announced that he will retire from SUPER GT as of this season. As the only current SUPER GT cars to be running this time, a total of seven GT500 class and GT300 class cars ran two laps before lining up on the home straight.
　When Quintarelli finally appeared driving his car No. 23, he was met by his three driving partners from over the years, Katsumasa Chiyo, Tsugio Matsuda and Masataka Yanagida. Then, after receiving bouquets from each of the three members of his family, who were brought in by Matsuda, Quintarelli addressed the fans. He told how it had been a red car driven by Michael Krumm and Masami Kageyama that had won the first SUPER GT race he ever saw in 2004. Then, when he saw the NISSAN cheering section in person for the first time at AUTOPOLIS, he dreamed that someday he might be supported by such wonderful cheering. He went on to say that his 17 years as a NISSAN driver after that dream came true were 17 years of great happiness for him. Then he promised to drive with all his heart and soul in what will be his last run in that dream machine, car No. 23, next week in the final round at SUZUKA. And he asked for everyone to cheer for him one more time. After delivering this message, Ronnie bowed deeply to the fans in the stands.

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

　Last to address the gathered crowd on behalf of all the NISSAN drivers and staff members was CEO Takao Katagiri of Nissan Motorsports & Customizing Co., Ltd. the organizing body behind NISMO. He began by thanking everyone who had turned out on this day for the festival. He then when on with words of gratitude and a promise to further develop the NISMO brand to bring everyone exciting race events and products that will carry this great history on to its 50th and its 60th anniversaries.

 

 

  

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