Takaboshi Puzzled by No. 23 Nissan’s “Uncomfortable” Feeling

Nissan SUPER GT driver Mitsunori Takaboshi admits he has been struggling with an “uncomfortable” feeling at the wheel of the manufacturer’s flagship No. 23 GT500 car so far this season, amid a difficult season so far for the works NISMO team.

The Nissan Z NISMO shared by Takaboshi and Katsumasa Chiyo sits tenth in the current standings with a best finish of sixth in the Okayama season opener.

Since then, the pair have finished eighth in the second round at Fuji Speedway and then out of the points in a weekend to forget at Sepang last month.

Reviewing the season so far, Takaboshi admitted that the No. 23 car feels “completely different” to the sister No. 3 NISMO machine he raced last year, when he finished third in the standings alongside Atsushi Miyake, winning a race at Fuji.

That remains Nissan’s most recent GT500 victory, with rival marque Toyota currently on a record-breaking seven-race winning streak dating back to last year’s Sugo round.

“Not just at Sepang, but all this year the No. 23 car has not been in good shape,” Takaboshi told Sportscar365. “That’s something I felt even since testing.

“I don’t know what the cause is, but the feeling compared to last year’s No. 3 car is completely different, and it feels really uncomfortable while driving. We can’t run at a satisfactory pace at the moment, so we have to do something.

“Honestly, at the moment, we don’t know how to resolve this feeling. We are in the middle of searching for solutions right now. If we can at least find a way to deal with this particular problem, then I’m sure we will be able to perform better.

“It feels like it may not be purely related to the set-up, so we are at a loss.”

Takaboshi added he doesn’t have high expectations for this weekend’s sprint race at Fuji, which is made up of separate races on Saturday and Sunday with no success ballast.

“Looking at it objectively, even with the success weight, we have not been competitive,” he said. “At Fuji [Round 2] we qualified 15th, at Sepang 14th.

“Honestly, even with handicaps, we couldn’t fight properly. So first of all, I just want to reach the stage where we can at least be competitive.”

NISMO’s No. 3 car has had an even more difficult season with Miyake and Takaboshi’s replacement Daiki Sasaki having scored just two points for tenth-place finishes at Okayama and Fuji, although the pair have enjoyed better fortunes in qualifying.

They qualified fifth at both Fuji and Sepang, only to slide down the order in the race on both occasions, ending up out of the points in 11th at Sepang.

Miyake told Sportscar365: “It feels like we can qualify well, and we’re often starting around fifth position, so even though we are not in a position to be fastest in qualifying, it feels like we are least able to deliver in terms of peak performance.

“However, at both Fuji [Round 2] and Sepang we really struggled with pick-up. We are not able to get rid of the pick-up easily, and even though we have been thinking about how to deal with that a lot, we haven’t been able to improve the situation.

“I think without this, the balance of the car has been good. Quite often, immediately after the pit stops when we have no pick-up, we are able to do quick times.”

On this weekend’s Fuji sprint, Miyake added: “In the GT500-only race, we won’t have to go off-line [to pass traffic], so I think things will be different.

“That said, without success weight, it will be tough, but we’ll do our best.”