SILVERSTONE, UK – Motul Team RJN were left wondering "what if?" after a frustrating day on home soil at Silverstone in the latest round of the Blancpain GT Championship Endurance Cup.
The team ended the day with a 16th place finish for the No. 23 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 driven by NISMO athletes Alex Buncome, Lucas Ordóñez and Katsumasa Chiyo.
The No. 22 entry of Matt Parry, Struan Moore and Matt Simmons finished 24th.
In qualifying, Ordóñez kicked off the first segment by going fastest of all in the 55 car field for the second race in a row. Alex Buncombe's run on a second set of tires looked set to put the No. 23 machine into the top six when he was six tenths of a second up after the first two sectors, only for a red flag to cruelly force the Brit to abandon the lap.
Ordóñez (starting P22) and Struan Moore (P14) started the race and both made strong progress forward. Both Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3s had stints inside the top 10, only to be pushed back due to unfortunate timings of safety cars - hitting the No. 22 entry particularly hard.
A late race drive-through penalty ruined the chance of a top 10 result for No. 23 after Katsumasa Chiyo was judged to have exceeded the maximum driving time by a mere 14 seconds.
"When I was in clear air I could get down into the two minute, two second pace which seemed like a pretty good race pace," said Buncombe. "Unfortunately, half way in my stint I got told I had to do a drive through penalty because Chiyo was slightly over in his driver time. What I'd gained in my stint, I had to lose by touring the pit lane, which is a shame. We ended up P16, so this was not our weekend here, but I'm really looking forward to the next one at Paul Ricard."
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NISMO Calendar
May 20-21
Super GT, Autopolis, Japan
Pirelli World Challenge, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, Toronto, Canada
Nissan Micra Cup, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, Toronto, Canada
Virgin Australia Supercars Championship, Winton, Victoria, Australia
May 27-28
Pirelli World Challenge, Lime Rock Park Park, Lakeville, Connecticut, USA
Nissan Micra Cup, Circuit Mont-Tremblant, Canada
June 3-4
IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, Belle Isle, Detroit, Michigan, USA
Contact
Paul Ryan
Global Motorsport Communications
Nissan/NISMO
Marketing and PR Manager
Phone: +1 678 644 0404
Email: paul@nismosupport.com
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