FIA GT1 World Championship
San Luis (ARG), December 4th–5th, 2010

The tenth and final race of the 2010 FIA GT1 World Championship season took place in San Luis, Argentina.

Swedish pilot Max Nilsson competed once more for Swiss Racing Team in the NISSAN GT-R with start number 4 and with his partner Seiji Ara from Japan.
During the free practice session Nilsson took to the track, which turned out difficult, for the very first time. In his seven laps he tried to get to know the very fast Circuito San Luis as well as possible. “It was very difficult. I did not have a lot of grip because the track was sandy and dusty. It was ok but I would have liked to drive a few more laps to familiarise myself with it a little more”, says Nilsson about his first impressions.

Saturday’s pre-qualifying was delayed due to thunderstorm and rain. Afterwards, the track conditions were not easy. Although most parts were already dry, there were also some parts where the water was still running. Both Nilsson and Ara used wet tyres for one lap before changing back to slicks.

In accordance with the regulations Seiji Ara started in the qualifying session and once again did not manage to qualify the NISSAN for Q2. This was probably due to the tyre pressure which was not ideal and therefore made it impossible to reach the second qualifying.

The Swede used the warm-up session on Sunday morning to drive a few more kilometres when he heard loud noise coming from the car, signalising an engine failure. Since the period of time between the warm-up and the qualifying race was very short, it was impossible to quickly exchange the engine. The car remained in the team’s pit during the first race.

This also meant the last start position for the main race where Japanese Ara went first. He was able to gain two places in the first lap. In the 13th lap Nilsson took over the GT-R. When the Swede got back on the track he immediately noticed that there was something wrong with the new tyres on the front axle. He did not have much grip and therefore the car understeered during his entire stint. However, he managed to keep his position and showed a good fight with the Vitaphone Maserati #2. In the end he drove across the finish line in P13.

Max Nilsson: “I did not have many opportunities to drive this weekend. Therefore I had almost no chance to get to know the track. That is a very unsatisfying situation which I had to face several times this season. During the main race I had almost no grip on the front tyres after the driver change and was forced to defend my position and survive during the rest of the race.
In retrospective, I learned a lot during my first GT1 season which I fully completed. I drove on seven new tracks. It was a good decision to compete in this championship. Unfortunately I got too few opportunities to drive and therefore did not have many chances to really get to know the NISSAN GT-R which was not really competitive compared to the other cars. Now I am looking forward to the winter break.”