Nissan has decided against renewing its contract with customer Intercontinental GT Challenge team KCMG.
KCMG raced at this year’s Bathurst 12Hour with their GT-R NISMO GT3’s. The #18 was largely competitive across the entire weekend, qualifying fourth in the Pirelli Top Ten Shootout and finishing the race in 12th and three laps down after a myriad of minor incidents and technical delays
Meanwhile, the sister #35 GTR was withdrawn after a heavy crash in practice.
But now it looks more than likely that Bathurst will be the last Intercontinental GT World Challenge race that the latest generation of Nissan GT-R compete in.
KCMG had already signed to race at the prestigious Nürburgring 24 Hour endurance with a pair of Porsche 911 GT3 R’s, souring the relationship with Nissan.
Nissan is so far yet to ink a deal with the Intercontinental GT Challenge to race in next season’s campaign, the only manufacturer to have yet to do so.
Consequently, the Nissan GT-R is likely to now only compete inside the Japanese domestic racing scene (e.g. Super GT 500), with the IGTC GT-R available for local Japanese teams to be prepared for the Suzuka 10 Hour.
Though it is not all over for the GT-R on the world scale.
Expect an appearance of the GT-R at 24 Hours of Nürburgring with Kondo Racing later this year.
Nissan has yet to publicly announce their intentions concerning their future involvement in the Intercontinental GT Challenge.