NISSAN returned from another successful Goodwood Festival of Speed to hear the news that James Davison's #33 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 had won the Pirelli World Challenge race at Road America. Added to the news that Lucas Ordonez had taken a double podium in Japanese F3 at Okayama in Japan it was another good weekend for Nissan Motorsport. Alex Buncombe (GB) took the wheel of the Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 at Goodwood, the recent winner of the Blancpain Endurance Series race at Paul Ricard tasked with retaining Nissan's honor on the world-famous Goodwood hill climb. With each run he improved, hustling the GT-R up the narrow hill, before grabbing first place in the Modern Endurance class, with a time that put him eighth overall, only beaten by F1 cars and Pikes Peak & time attack specials. In the Supercar class, Jann Mardenborough sped up the hill in the brand new Nissan Juke-R 2.0, logging times that eclipsed cars from Ferrari, Porsche, Pagani and Lamborghini. The GT Academy winner is no stranger to Goodwood after topping the timesheets in the Nissan GT-R Time Attack car last year and he took great delight in showing off the finer points of the newly-unleashed Juke-R 2.0. Sir Chris Hoy made his return to Goodwood, determined to put last year's encounter with the hay bales at Molecomb Corner behind him. He had many great runs in the Ginetta-Nissan LMP3 car throughout the event and was very happy to be the first person to “take an LMP3 car up Lord March's driveway!” James Davison took the #33 Always Evolving Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 to an overall World Challenge win on Sunday at Road America, Wisconsin. This was his second win of the season and in addition to his second place on Saturday's race. Bryan Heitkotter, who won GT Academy USA in 2011, continued to collect World Challenge podiums and now sits fourth in the GTA standings. The first GT academy winner, Lucas Ordonez, continued his Japanese Formula 3 campaign at Okayama in Japan last weekend. The Spaniard took two strong fourth places in qualifying and turned both into podium finishes in rounds 10 and 11 of the Japanese series. “Qualifying was very tight but I am getting closer and closer to the top guys,” said Ordonez. “In race one I took third going into the first corner and managed to maintain good pace as I chased the leaders. Race two had a lot of action in the first two corners and I lost a position but I soon took it back again. I was fourth when the safety car came out and at the restart I managed to make a move on (Nick) Cassidy to take third as I had worked hard to keep the heat in my tires. I'm happy to take third in both races. The guys ahead of me have a lot more single-seater experience but we are catching up.” — SG
