MOTORSPORT: Nissan puts V8 program on notice

Nissan Australia's long-term commitment to racing V8 Supercars will depend on far better leveraging of its involvement, the company’s new boss Richard Emery has declared.

Emery, who joined Nissan on April 1 from Mercedes-Benz Australia/Pacific, where he was sales general manager, says he can find no evidence of any key performance indicators (KPIs) established within Nissan Australia to measure the success of racing V8 Supercars.

By that he is not talking about the on-track results of the four-car Nissan Altima squad run by Kelly Racing, but Nissan’s own efforts to exploit its multi-million dollar investment via sponsorship activation and promotion to its staff, dealer network, customers and the public.

Emery says only once such a program is developed, implemented and its success measured can Nissan make an “honest” decision whether it continues on with the category beyond its current agreement, which is believed to expire in 2017.

“I will put my hand on my heart and say Nissan Australia has not been honest with the program,” Emery told motoring.com.au.

“We need to set some of those (KPIs) up and say ‘what do we want out of this? How do we measure what we want?’ Then we can be honest and then once you decide what you want you go and resource that with the money, people, programs, whatever.

“And that’s why I use the word honest, because then we can look at ourselves at the other end and say ‘we did everything we could’. I don’t think we have done everything we could yet.”

Emery revealed a full-time Motorsport Activation Manager -- current Mitsubishi Australia National Retail Communications Manager Mitchell Wiley -- would commence in June to implement a promotional program for Nissan’s V8 Supercars attack, which debuted with the Car of the Future technical regulations in 2013.

“His sole job over the next two or three years will be to make sure the program works at our level so that in two years' time or whenever the timeframe is, we can put our hand on our heart around the boardroom table and says it’s worked or it hasn’t,” Emery explained.

“I wouldn’t be confident saying Nissan has given it its best shot right now, so it would be unfair and somewhat dishonest to make a decision to withdraw until we have done that. So if we do that and it works then it is not really an issue (a withdrawal).”

Nissan’s promotion of its V8 Supercars involvement did start strongly last year but has been overshadowed in 2014 by Volvo’s strong support of its S60 program with Garry Rogers and Polestar.

Nissan’s motorsport manager Jeff Fisher left the company shortly before Emery took up his post.

While unhappy with Nissan’s own efforts off-track, Emery made it clear he was pleased with the improving performances of the Kelly family-owned Nisan Motorsport operation, which still has only one win to its name -- at Winton in 2013.

“I can see the on-track stuff maturing to a point where I am pretty happy with it,” Emery said. “We would like it to be stronger… but certainly their expectation is they will get one or two cars in the top 10 at the end of every event.”

Emery also scotched the widely held belief that he did not like V8s, a perception that had gained ground because of Mercedes-Benz Australia/Pacific’s opposition to Erebus Motorsport’s AMG Customer Sports V8 Supercars program.

“I am a motorsport person and enthusiast,” Emery said. “My attitude is that motorsport is an important part of what Nissan is, so therefore we should be involved in it.

“As a car company, whatever you do, you have to do it at the highest level you possibly can and that means the highest level of professionalism, technology, exposure and all those sorts of things.

“In Australia that means V8 Supercars. So if you make the first decision first, which is we are going to be in motorsport – tick, OK where is the best motorsport environment to be in in Australia? Well at the moment it is V8 Supercars.”