Chiyo: Nissan Must React After Honda’s Leap Forward

Photo: Nissan

Katsumasa Chiyo says Nissan must find a way to extract more performance from its Z NISMO GT500 car heading into the latter half of the SUPER GT season after the major leap forward taken by Honda in the most recent races at Fuji and Suzuka.

Chiyo and his co-driver in the works No. 23 Nissan, Mitsunori Takaboshi, were best of the rest in last month’s Suzuka 300km behind the three Honda HRC Prelude-GTs that locked out the podium, rising from eighth on the grid to finish fourth.

Honda made a marked improvement starting from the third round of the season at Fuji, taking advantage of the long break after the Golden Week round at the same circuit to completely revamp the new-for-2026 car’s setup concept.

With Toyota having started the season in a dominant position with its GR Supra, Chiyo believes Nissan now needs to make a similar leap to Honda to stay in the running.

“We were able to get on the podium in Round 2 [at Fuji], which was something we knew we had to do, but the Supra teams was really fast and we worked hard during the summer break to try and catch them,” Chiyo recalled speaking to Sportscar365.

“But then, when we returned to Fuji, we found the Prelude was a lot faster. That came as a surprise to us. We won at Suzuka last year, but we knew this time the Prelude would be fast and it wouldn’t be easy. Sure enough, they locked out the podium.

“Honestly, the Z is losing out in terms of performance, so we have to do something about that looking ahead to the second half of the season.

“Our race pace at Suzuka was strong, which is positive, but our single lap pace is lagging, so I think we have to do more to improve that.”

Chiyo regretted the No. 23 car’s choice of Bridgestone tire for qualifying, but was confident he could have overhauled a struggling Kaku Ohta in the No. 8 ARTA Honda for third before a late safety car period effectively brought the race to an early end.

“In qualifying, the tires we chose were a bit too conservative for the new track surface at Suzuka,” Chiyo recalled. “I wanted to start a little higher up the order but we only realized after qualifying we should have taken a more aggressive choice.

“On the other hand, in the race the track temperature rose a lot and the tires performed very consistently in those conditions. We knew that doing the same as everybody else wouldn’t help us, so we aimed for an overcut strategy and it went well.

“Towards the end I realized that car No. 8 was struggling, so I kept pushing for the podium, but the safety car came out and the race ended. Given the number of laps left I knew the race might not resume, but it was a shame we couldn’t fight until the end.”

Chiyo and Takaboshi lie eighth in the standings ahead of this month’s Sugo round, 28 points away from TOM’S Toyota duo Sho Tsuboi and Kenta Yamashita.

The other two Nissan driver pairings, Bertrand Baguette and Kazuki Hiramine (Team Impul) and Teppei Natori and Atsushi Miyake (Kondo Racing) are ninth and 12th respectively after finishing sixth and seventh at Suzuka.

However, the top six crews in the championship are now all carrying power-reducing fuel flow restrictors for Sugo, while the No. 23 NISMO car is just shy of the 51 kg threshold on 44 kg, something that Chiyo is hoping will play in the team’s favor.

“We tried something new at Suzuka this time, adjusting the set-up to match this year’s package. Some things worked well, some things didn’t,” he said. “We also used the tire test on Monday to try some other directions to find the best set-up for Sugo.

“Qualifying will be very important at Sugo, and although it was frustrating we missed the podium, we still don’t have much success weight, so we want to make the most of that.

“Sugo and Autopolis are both good circuits for us, so we want to try and score well while our rivals are heavy, and give ourselves a shot going into the final two races.

“I still have confidence, but I am also concerned by the strength of our rivals, so in that sense we need to improve the car and prepare properly as drivers.”

Source: Sports Car 365