Portimao: Nissan preview

NISSAN GT1 TEAMS LOOKING FOR SUCCESS IN THE SUN

As Autumn draws close in Europe the FIA GT1 World Championship heads south this weekend for the sunshine of Portugal. Both Sumo Power GT and Swiss Racing Team have been hard at work since the Nurburgring weekend and will be looking to add to their points tally at the Portimao event.

Sumo Power's Jamie Campbell-Walter and Warren Hughes found themselves on the back foot in Germany after a difficult qualifying session. The British pair made the best of it though and fought their way up to eighth in the main championship race.

"Out of the four Sumo Power drivers I am the only one who hasn't raced at Portimao yet but the others tell me it is a track that will suit the Nissan GT-R," said Campbell-Walter. "I enjoy going to new tracks and I usually learn them very quickly so that won't be a handicap for us. Warren (Hughes) is a great team-mate and we always share information with each other as much as possible. It would be good for us to get a result in Portugal. The season started badly for us but then it got better and better. At the Nurburgring the car was fast but we've got to make sure we get through Q1 because it ruins your weekend if you don't. We're gathering more experience as we go and hope to put on a good show this weekend."

The Sumo Power GT Team Principal, James Rumsey, would like to see both of his Nissan GT-Rs in the points in Portugal.

"I think the Sumo Power GT team will do well at Portimao," he said. "The guys are all working well together and we've done some good rig testing since the Nurburgring weekend. As always we want to get both cars up into the points scoring positions and to do that we need to improve our qualifying performance. The boys all have the race pace so we need to nail qualifying and we'll be right up there."

The Swiss Racing Team proved that they had the pace for points at the Nurburgring. Henri Moser and Karl Wendlinger finished the championship race in the top ten and hope to chalk up more points this weekend.

"We just completed a two-day test at the Lausitzring in Germany, " said Moser. "It was a really good test and we were able to do a lot of work to improve the set-up so we have good expectations for Portugal. Of course the real results won't be known until we are on track with the other competitors but the car is feeling good. Portimao is a quick and fluid circuit so it should suit us."

The first practice session gets underway in Portimao on Friday morning. Qualifying is on Saturday at 1115hrs with the qualifying race kicking off at 1645hrs. The lights go green for the main event of the weekend, the championship race, at 1530hrs on Sunday.

-source: nissan