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2022.01.25
Nissan/NISMO announce their GT500 drivers for this season. Baguette joins the No. 12 team! Takaboshi joins No. 3 team as Hirate moves to No. 24 team

Nissan/NISMO announce their GT500 drivers for this season. Baguette joins the No. 12 team! Takaboshi joins No. 3 team as Hirate moves to No. 24 teamの画像

On Jan. 25th, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. and Nissan Motorsports International Co., Ltd. (NISMO) announced the driver lineups for Nissan teams in the 2022 SUPER GT GT500 class. No announcements were made, however, about the car names and affiliated tire makers, nor about the GT300 class teams. Furthermore, it was announced that a motorsports fan event will be held online on Feb. 20 (Sun.) with team principals and drivers of the Nissan SUPER GT GT500 teams attending.

 

 

Four teams will compete in the 2022 season GT500 class with Nissan cars. As with last year, NISMO's COO, Motohiro Matsumura, will serve as Executive Director of the Nissan teams.

For the ninth year in a row, the drivers for the NISMO team's car No. 23 that won one race last season will again be Tsugio Matsuda and Ronnie Quinrarelli. Succeeding the late Mr. Yutaka Suzuki, who passed away this past December, as the NISMO team's new Team Principal will be Takeshi Nakajima, who served as the Mr. Suzuki's right-hand man in the position as Chief Engineer since 2014.

Taking the position of first driver for the NDDP RACING team's car No. 3 will be Katsumasa Chiyo, and teaming him will be Mitsunori Takaboshi, who drove car No. 24 last season. Both are drivers who have come up through the Nissan program and moved up to GT500 after gaining experience in the GT300 class driving the NISSAN GT-R GT3. The team will also have a new Team Principal in Jiro Shimada, as the team battles to win races.

Again this season, the valiant leader of TEAM IMPUL, Kazuyoshi Hoshino, will lead the No. 12 team in its battle to win the title they missed taking last year. The first driver will again be Kazuki Hiramine, and he will pair with Bertrand Baguette, who comes to the team from a Honda team that won one race last season. For Baguette, this will be his 9th season in GT500.

For the KONDO RACING team's car No. 24, Daiki Sasaki moves up to the position of first driver. Moving to the team as his partner is Kohei Hirate, who drove in car No. 3 until last year. Driving for Toyota teams, Hirate has won seven races, and he proved his speed by taking a win after coming to drive the NDDP RACING team's car No. 3 in 2019. With Team Principal Masahiko Kondo, he will be looking to get the team's first win since 2016.

 

 

GT500
No.
Team
Team Principal
Driver
3 NDDP RACING Jiro Shimada Katsumasa Chiyo (JPN)
Mitsunori Takaboshi (JPN)
12 TEAM IMPUL Kazuyoshi Hoshino Kazuki Hiramine (JPN)
Bertrand Baguette (BEL)
23 NISMO Takeshi Nakajima Tsugio Matsuda (JPN)
Ronnie Quintarelli (ITA)
24 KONDO RACING Masahiko Kondo Daiki Sasaki (JPN)
Kohei Hirate (JPN)
Executive Director : Motohiro Matsumura

 

At the announcement event, NISMO's President and CEO Takao Katagiri spoke about the program for this season's GT500 class and his expectations, saying: “This season, we have assembled a driver lineup that can win at any time. We expect Bertrand Baguette, who joined TEAM IMPUL this season, to drive passionately matched to the team. Jiro Shimada and Takeshi Nakajima have been appointed Team Principals of the NDDP RACING and NISMO teams respectively. Although new to their positions, we have full confidence in them due to their deep knowledge of and experience in racing. The debut season for the Nissan Z GT500 is about to start and development of the new vehicle for the opening round is reaching its final stages. Under the new team structures, we will unite our efforts and do our best in every race, always aiming for victory. We thank all our fans and partners for their continued support.”

 

 

Nissan and NISMO announce 2022 Super GT GT500 class driver lineup (RELEASE)
https://global.nissannews.com/en/releases/2022-super-gt-gt500-class-driver-lineup

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