LONG BEACH, Calif. – Always Evolving/AIM Autosport Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 driver James Davison pulled out a stunning drive to fourth place on the streets of Long Beach today in the latest Pirelli World Challenge round.
After qualifying 11th, Davison made a charging start to be seventh after the opening lap. He again made the most of restarts after the first yellow flag and made further progress to move to fifth place.
In a race strewn with incident and accidents, Davison drove a clean race to eventually finish fourth on the unforgiving street circuit that isn't ideally suited to the GT-R.
Davison’s teammate, former GT Academy winner Bryan Heitkotter, was one of the drivers to “bitten” by the unforgiving Long Beach concrete walls – nosing his GT-R into the turn one tire wall and bringing his race to an early end.
“Going into today’s race I knew making good starts and restarts were going to be critical, and that’s what we did,” said Davison. “We maximized the strength of the GT-R in a straight line, I was very aggressive under brakes into turn one and passed a couple of cars down the inside and outside. I’m very pleased for the team. We really punched above our weight on a tight street circuit.”
Davison, Heitkotter and the team will now head to Barber Motorsport Park in Alabama next weekend – the venue where both drivers stood on the top step of the podium last year.
“We all make mistakes, and Bryan will be back racing at Barber this week, and I’m sure he’ll be very motivated to make amends,” Davison said. “Last year at Barber, it was wet in qualifying and the GT-R was very strong. I started first and finished first – having track position was a big asset. Having some more rain this week wouldn’t hurt us at all.”