Nissan to Continue GT4 Focus in SRO America in 2025

Photo: Fred Hardy/SRO

Nissan will continue its North American focus of the Z NISMO GT4 car to customers exclusively in SRO America, with an expansion to IMSA-sanctioned competition ruled out for next year according to Nissan Motor Corporation motorsports program director Mike Carcamo.

The Japanese manufacturer, which recently completed the second season with the Z GT4 in Pirelli GT4 America with an expanded customer base that included Flying Lizard Motorsports and Blackdog Racing, is set to remain focused on SRO for 2025.

It comes following a productive first year with the heavily revised Z NISMO GT4 that was also seen in Japan’s Super Taikyu series.

“This is a customer program,” Carcamo told Sportscar365. “We think SRO [America] is a great first step.

“IMSA becomes an even larger opportunity but I still think we have probably another year before we start to see customers coming into say, ‘Hey we want to go race in IMSA as well.’

“The expense of racing in IMSA is a bit higher. We need both, not just the car, but also you need the teams that want to participate.

“That’s always a challenge because, as always, in every category that we run, Nissan is the ‘underdog’ against very luxury brands.

“As customers pay and get to choose, but the price [for a GT4 car] is [relatively] the same. It’s not like in the real marketplace where you’re paying five-times the difference for another manufacturer than a Nissan.

“We’re competing on a competitive basis.”

Carcamo hasn’t ruled out a move into Michelin Pilot Challenge and/or VP Racing SportsCar Challenge in 2026, however.

“We’re looking for the teams to come to us and say, ‘We want to go as well.’ That’s important for us,” he said.

The NISMO-built race car, which made its U.S. debut with development partner TechSport Racing in 2023, underwent significant changes for this year that Carcamo said has paid dividends.

“It was a tough challenge right from the beginning because we launched a new car in a new class which we had never done before,” he said.

“The car was built in Japan. We knew that we should take a slow approach, or at least a crawl, walk, run type of approach and I think that’s exactly how it’s played out.

“This year has seen a rapid increase in the development and performance. I think you can see that.

“We added two teams, which obviously helps that as well. I think we can see that over varying drivers, the caliber of the car now was capable of podium-ing on any given race by any of the three teams, which I think demonstrates the development process of the car.

“We’re closing in. This competition is really tight. You look at the actual performance, sometimes [the cars] are within a half-a-percent, all laps of all cars.

“The car is now in the ballpark, which is all you can ask for.”

Carcamo: Difference in Japan, U.S. Racing Proved Early Challenge for Car’s Development

With the Z road car not sold in Europe, Carcamo said the focus for the race program has been in North America and Japan only,  specifically GT4 America/GT America powered by AWS as well as Super Taikyu.

He ruled out seeing the Z NISMO GT4 compete in Europe or other markets where the car is not sold.

“The difficulty is that the championships are so different,” said Carcamo. “What I’ve learned is that the performance in Japan is not the performance in the U.S.

“We cannot use the data in Japan to prove that something is good or not [in the U.S.]

“Even though we have the fast capability to turn something around and go race in Japan, it’s not enough. So we have to design, build and test it, and then bring it here [to the U.S.] and then check again.

“Sometimes it’s not the right direction.

“Now with the additional teams, we’ve actually gotten a lot more feedback. Teams that have run different cars have said, ‘Hey, why don’t you consider doing it like this?’

“It wasn’t even on the radar yet.

“I think the competition and the class is so different in Japan that our engineers were not aware of the openness that is here.”

Carcamo, however, said that gains from SRO America competition have now been validated in Japan as well.

“The good thing is that everything that has worked here has been a benefit in Japan,” he said. “So it’s worked the opposite way that when we find something here that works, it only makes the car better.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John