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Nissan GT-R LM hobbled by 'very minor' issue during Sebring test

We're always going to have a soft spot for the Rolex 24 at Daytona. It marks the start of the endurance racing season, after all. But it's the endurance racing circus' three-hour drive south for the annual to-do at Sebring International Raceway that really sets our hearts aflutter. That's because Sebring is generally used by the biggest teams as a tune-up for June's 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Floridian race might only be half as long, but the sheer brutality of the racing surface makes it a great test of a racer's durability, hence why it's a popular stop on the way to France. As it turns out, it was the track's roughness that was the reason Nissan decided to piggyback on one of Audi's tests at the south Florida circuit, Autosport reports. But an issue "to do with the engine mounting" on the front-engined GT-R LM racer sidelined the team. "It was actually a very minor thing, but we just don't have a spare here," Technical Director Ben Bowlby told Autosport. "We've spent a lot of time at Austin, which is very smooth, so we wanted to come to a particularly harsh environment like Sebring." While it seems rather silly to test somewhere in an attempt to "accelerate the durability cycle" without packing a full complement of spares, the rough surface of Sebring has a tendency to wreak havoc with even the most reliable of parts. Nissan did manage to run a total of 68 laps over the course of two days, with drivers Marc Gene and Olivier Pla at the wheel. At present, Nissan won't be running the GT-R LM in the actual 12 Hours of Sebring – it's first race outing will instead be at the 6 Hours of Silverstone, running next month. Related Video:

Nissan posts $6.2 billion annual loss and unveils plan to cut costs

TOKYO — Nissan outlined a new plan on Thursday to become a smaller, more cost-efficient carmaker after the coronavirus pandemic exacerbated a slide in profitability that culminated in its first annual loss in 11 years. Under a new four-year plan, the Japanese manufacturer will slash its production capacity and model range by about a fifth to help cut 300 billion yen from fixed costs. It will shut plants in Spain and Indonesia, leave the South Korean market and pull its Datsun brand from Russia as part of a strategy unveiled on Wednesday to share production globally with its partners Renault and Mitsubishi. "I will make every effort to return Nissan to a growth path," Nissan Chief Executive Makoto Uchida said, adding that the company had learned from its past mistakes of chasing global market share at all costs. "We must admit failures and take corrective actions," he said, adding that starting with top-level managers, the company had to break its inward-looking culture which in the past has stymied efforts to deepen cooperation with France's Renault. Uchida said improving the company's cash flow was its biggest challenge. He reiterated that Nissan's cash liquidity was good even though it had negative free cash flow of 641 billion yen in the year ended in March. Nissan declined to give any forecasts for its current financial year which started in April due to the uncertainty created by the coronavirus pandemic. It also declined to give details on how many jobs it was cutting. In what is Nissan's second recovery plan in less than a year, Uchida pledged a return to profitability with a core operating profit margin above 5% and a sustainable global market share of 6%. Nissan posted an annual operating loss of 40.5 billion yen for the year to March 31, its worst performance since 2008/09. Its operating profit margin was -0.4%. The automaker said on Thursday that it sold 4.9 million vehicles last year, up from an earlier estimate of 4.8 million. That was still the second decline in a row and a fall of 11% from the previous period but meant Nissan clung on to its position as Japan's second biggest carmaker, just ahead of Honda and a long way behind Toyota. Pandemic pressure Even before the spread of the novel coronavirus, Nissan's slumping profits had forced it to row back on an aggressive expansion plan pursued by ousted leader Carlos Ghosn. The pandemic has only piled on the urgency to downsize.

Nismo smartwatch concept tracks both car and driver [w/videos]

Whether you agree or not, this writer believes that every supercar needs a wristwatch to go with it. Though the Nissan GT-R has been lacking in this one regard, Nissan is keen to correct that wrong. But while most of these automotive-inspired timepieces are decidedly mechanical, Nissan has gone a suitably different direction in creating its new Nismo watch concept.
The electronic smartwatch connects driver, car, watch and phone in a sleek design. The device allows drivers to monitor such parameters as the car's average speed and fuel consumption, access performance telematics on the track, monitor their own heart rate and interface with their smartphone via Bluetooth and a dedicated app. The watch can even tell the driver when it's time to bring his car in for scheduled maintenance, post lap times and such to popular social media platforms, and of course, you know - literally give you the time of day.
Though still in the concept phase, Nissan seems keen to bring this to market, has even gone so far as to design the packaging - made of tire rubber scraped off the track - and done it up in three colors: red, white or black. In the meantime Nismo will be showcasing the smartwatch concept at the Frankfurt show this week, where we hope to get a glimpse up close, but you can delve into the press release and the pair of videos below.