Interlagos: Nissan preview

THE BATTLEFIELD MOVES TO BRAZIL

Formula One has just crowned its 2010 champion and now the time has come for GT1 World to head across the Atlantic to finish the fight for the 2010 FIA GT1 World Championship. Since the battle began in Abu Dhabi in April, the Nissan teams haven't stopped working for a single day, constantly battling to get the best possible results on track.

The Sumo Power GT team is riding high in the championship standings. Currently in third place, the team will be out to catch the second-placed Reiter Lamborghini squad but they won't take their eyes off the two Aston Martin teams snapping at their heels in fourth and fifth place.

The Nissan GT-R driver who knows Interlagos the best is Karl Wendlinger. The ex-F1 racer has competed at the famous Brazilian track many times and is looking forward to returning.

Peter Dumbreck hasn't raced at Interlagos before but as a keen gamer he has done many virtual laps of the track so, as he says, he knows which way it goes!

"Interlagos should suit us, with its fast, flowing corners and the big uphill straight," he explained. "There are a couple of slow corners that won't be good for the Nissan GT-Rs but I think we will be in a much more competitive situation than we were in at Navarra. The really important thing for us is to get it all together for qualifying. We have to qualify well so we can avoid the mid-pack danger zone at the start of the race. We got that right at the Portimao round and came out of the weekend without a scratch on the car. If we can get that right at Interlagos then we should be looking at some good results. We retired ay Navarra so we're in a good position in terms of tyres too."

Warren Hughes and Jamie Campbell-Walter have raced at Interlagos before so will start the weekend with a small advantage over their team-mates.

"This is a great circuit to race on and hopefully the F1 cars will have left a bit of rubber on the track for us!" said Hughes. "I'm loathed to make any predictions after Navarra as I didn't think that track would suit us, but we should be strong on the uphill section and there are a few big braking areas, which will be good for us. I'm looking forward to it as I think we'll be competitive. Jamie and I both raced there in 2007 in the Le Mans Series so we know where the track goes. That will give us a small advantage but I'm in no doubt that the others will be fully on it after a few laps.

Seiji Ara is another driver who hasn't raced at Interlagos before but he is more than ready for the challenges on offer there.

"I have never raced at Interlagos but as the track is very famous as it's the home of the Brazilian Grand Prix, I am really excited about racing there," he said. "It looks like a high-speed race track which I believe will suit the Nissan GT-R well. Our tactics are simple: we will just push very hard in qualifying to get a better starting position by optimising the performance of the Nissan GT-R, and then race consistently to grab championship points."

The Brazilian weekend returns to the regular GT1 format so the qualifying race is on Saturday at 1430hrs (local time) and the championship race gets underway on Sunday at 1500hrs.

-source: nissan