MOTORSPORT: September D-day for Nissan

Nissan Australia boss Richard Emery says he is “pretty confident” the company will stay in motorsport beyond 2016 and rates V8 Supercars “top of the list” as the avenue for it to then pursue.

And if Nissan does continue with Australia’s highest profile circuit racing category into its new Gen2 era starting in 2017, it will then review whether it will stick with Kelly Motorsport, the Altima sedan and the VK56DE engine or change some or all of those aspects of the program.

Emery told motoring.com.au the decision on sticking with motorsport would be made after consultation with international bosses in September. A call on going again with V8 Supercars would be made late October or early November.

He said V8 Supercars had an edge over GT sports car racing if Nissan remains involved in professional motorsport in Australia after next year.

“I am pretty confident that answer will be ‘yes we should be involved in motorsport in Australia’,” he said.

“If you make that first decision to be in motorsport in Australia … you go to the category or the extension of motorsport that provides you with the best commercial outputs, the best level of professionalism and technology. At the moment that is V8 Supercars.

“It would be top of the list, but by no means would it be an assumption.”

Emery also revealed he had been inundated with inquiries from rival teams pitching to replace the Kellys as the company’s factory flag-bearer in the category.

And he made it clear he wasn’t happy with what he was hearing.

“It’s easy for people to throw darts at the Kellys because we haven’t been able to get our performance to the level where we want it to be,” Emery said. “But they don’t know what goes on in the background in terms of how we got to this point.

“So it’s a cheap shot for people to have a crack and say ‘we could make your cars go faster than the Kellys because we are better’.”

Nissan Australia entered V8 Supercars when the category switched to the Car of the Future in 2013 with a four-car squad run by racing brothers Rick and Todd Kelly, the latter now sponsored by carsales.com.au.

The team has managed one win since then, campaigning an Altima silhouette powered by a 5.0-litre version of the V8 petrol engine in the latest Y62 Patrol.

But the engine has proved troublesome and important cylinder-head development is due to flow in soon. Aerodynamics have also proved an issue, with the car’s aero pack being twice re-homologated.

The program also lacked full support from Nissan Australia until Emery took over last year, while global motorsport arm NISMO also took time to get onboard.

Emery said the Kelly operation had been kept in the loop by Nissan about its deliberations, which -- if V8 Supercars got a green light -- would review whether to stay with the Kellys, split responsibilities with another team or move entirely to another operation.

“I think we have been pretty open with them about what the process is and they understand why we are going through the process to make sure it is a robust decision,” Emery explained.

“I need to make sure it is globally supported and that hasn’t always been the case. At the moment it is very well supported globally, but it wasn’t in the first two years and that was frustrating for them.

“They understand whatever we determine we want to do in the future needs to be holus so it has all the tentacles and support mechanisms that we need to make it successful.

“So they understand we have gone back to the core and we need to work our way back up and eventually we will come to a discussion about their operation; how it's structured, how many cars is it, do we spread our risk factor by going with two teams. All those things will be discussed.”

The new Gen2 regulations would allow Nissan to swap from the Altima sedan to a two-door bodyshell silhouette such as the ‘Godzilla’ GT-R, as well as trade in the V8 for another engine such as a turbocharged V6 or four-cylinder.

But Emery played down the prospects for GT-R, suggesting the existing Altima/V8 combination would continue.

“My gut feel is that V8 Supercars is not the platform for GT-R,” Emery said. “I’d need to be convinced otherwise, because by the time we get to 2017-18-19, I would assume there will be a new GT-R in the offing and it will be a high technology car. And whether we like it or not V8 Supercars is not high technology and therefore probably not the right marketing platform for a GT-R.”

On the VK56DE’s future, he said: “By the time we get to the end of next year that engine will have had four years of development. It is getting there.

“To throw that in the rubbish bin effectively and start again after all the issues we have had introducing a new engine this time round; it would be a brave CEO to make that call.”