Hidden Fuji Breakthrough Key to NISMO’s Suzuka Win

NISMO team director Takeshi Nakajima has credited a hidden breakthrough made during the Fuji sprint weekend for Nissan’s flagship No. 23 car being in a position to end the marque’s victory drought in last weekend’s Suzuka SUPER GT round.

Nissan celebrated its first GT500 win of 2025, and its first since last year’s Golden Week Fuji race, as Katsumasa Chiyo and Mitsunori Takaboshi triumphed after starting second and gaining the advantage in the pit stop phase.

It marked the end of a nine-race winning streak for Toyota in SUPER GT’s top division, although the best of the GR Supras, the No. 14 Rookie Racing car, was still able to split the two works NISMO-run Nissans that finished first and third.

Prior to Suzuka, Chiyo and Takaboshi had endured a difficult season, failing to finish higher than sixth, prompting Takaboshi to complain of an “uncomfortable feeling” at the wheel of the No. 23 car prior to the Fuji sprint in early August.

However, Nakajima believes that set-up progress made during that weekend put NISMO back on track, even if he conceded that the No. 23 car’s relatively light success handicap of 18 kg was “at least half the reason” for the team’s victory.

“We struggled a lot in the first three rounds of the season, and we did everything possible to figure out the cause,” Nakajima told Sportscar365.

“For Round 4 [at Fuji] we made some big changes to the setup. We tried pursuing a particular direction, and as there seemed to be no problems in the first race, we went even further in that direction for the second race.

“Even though the results weren’t great, in qualifying for Race 2, we had a lock-up at ‘B Corner’ [Turn 10] and lost quite a bit of time, but without that I think we would have been able to finish P5. So we kept that setup concept and brought that with us this time.”

Although Nakajima insisted he wasn’t worried by the second-placed Rookie Toyota closing to within little over a second of Chiyo in the latter stages of the race, he admitted the feeling inside the NISMO garage was one of relief rather than joy.

“It was such a big relief,” he said of the No. 23 car’s first win since Okayama in 2023. “There wasn’t so much feeling of, ‘yes, we did it, we’re so happy’, more just, ‘phew’.”

The Suzuka round marked a rare occasion on which both NISMO cars had an edge over what had been the highest-scoring Nissan team pre-weekend, Team Impul, whose drivers Bertrand Baguette and Kazuki Hiramine only finished eighth.

“The No. 12 [Impul] car’s results have generally been good this year, but they have had the advantage of using Bridgestone tires for a long time,” said Nakajima when asked why he felt Impul has held an edge over the works cars.

“But we have also been using the setup of the No. 12 car as a reference.

“Plus, when there is a new monocoque, the balance of the car often changes a lot. I think that was also one of the reasons why we struggled a lot up until Sepang.”

Chiyo and Takaboshi have moved up to joint-fifth in the drivers’ standings following their Suzuka win, albeit with a daunting 29.5-point deficit to championship-leading TOM’S Toyota pair Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita with three races to go.

Nakajima admitted that Toyota is “strong in all conditions and in any situation”, but also believes that NISMO has reason to be optimistic for the upcoming two races at Sugo and Autopolis, despite an increase in success ballast.

“Sugo and Autopolis are circuits where you can run quite a similar setup to Suzuka,” he said. “If we can get the tire selection right, I am sure we can keep up this momentum.

“For Sugo, we will have the stage one fuel flow restrictor, but I think this is not such a disadvantage for Sugo and Autopolis, so I think it will be ok.

“At the very least, we want to be on the podium for the next two races, and then we’ll see where we are ahead of the final race [at Motegi].”