Fighting finish in Pro-Am after drama for Pro Car in Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cu

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05-04-2023, 09:06 AM #1

BRANDS HATCH, England (May 16, 2016) –Nissan collected its first Pro-Am points of the season at Silverstone in the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup in a bittersweet day for Nissan yesterday.Sean Walkinshaw combined with GT Academy winners Matt Simmons (Australia) and Romain Sarazin (France) to finish seventh in the Pro-Am class aboard the No.22 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3. British ace Walkinshaw climbed aboard the No.22 machine for the final stint and moved from 14th in class up to as high as sixth before crossing the line in seventh place."We went from 14th to seventh, which wasn't bad at all, and it's just a shame I couldn't keep hold of sixth at the end over the last couple of laps – the tires had just gone," said Walkinshaw. "I had to defend but tried to make sure I wasn't losing time in amongst the backmarkers. I'm a bit annoyed, as I could have held on if it wasn't for a little mistake on the second to last lap. It's great to have our first points though. We're on the board now and hopefully Paul Ricard next month will be good. It's going to be a six-hour race so, even better, as it means twice as long in the car."Sadly for the No.23 machine, opening lap contact for Alex Buncombe took the team's Pro entry out of contention and into a forced retirement – leaving both Mitsunori Takaboshi and Lucas Ordóñez without any race laps. "The first three quarters of the opening lap was awesome," said Buncombe. "I passed about six cars in the first few corners but unfortunately got squeezed by a couple of cars that I was trying to get out of the way of. Then I got speared by a Lamborghini and it destroyed the front left corner of the car. I managed to get it back to the pits. The boys got it fixed and I got back out there and I was able to set some really fast times as good as the lead group. Our pace was really good but we need to work on maintaining that pace when the tires start to drop away. I handed over to Mitsunori, and when he went to go the car wouldn't start. We changed the starter, but we were so far down the order it was best to save the tire allocation for the next Blancpain race at Paul Ricard."Nissan GT Academy Team RJN will now set its sights on the Nürburgring 24 Hour on May 28-29 where Buncombe and Ordóñez will be joined by Kazuki Hoshino and Michael Krumm.Great racing from the @NISMO team this weekend. Terrible luck with the #23, but a good fight from the #22. pic.twitter.com/zDRZAcMjuz— Simon Clark (@SimonC979) May 15, 2016NISMO CalendarMay 21-22 V8 Supercar, Winton, Victoria, Australia Pirelli World Challenge, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, Ontario, CanadaMay 28-29 Nurburgring 24 Hour, Nurburgring, Germany Pirelli World Challenge, Lime Rock Park, Connecticut, USA Micra Cup Canada, Mont Tremblant, Quebec, CanadaJune 4-5 24 Hours of Le Mans Test Day # # # ContactJane Johnstone Marketing Communications Director Global Motorsport Communications Nissan/NISMO Phone: +44 7979 710646 Email: [email protected] Ryan Marketing and PR Manager Phone: +1 678 644 0404 Email: [email protected]

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