Nissan signs Bailey and Blundell
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Nissan’s newly confirmed assault on the World Sports-Prototype Championship will feature an all-British driving squad for its single British-built Group C chassis.
Dubbed the Nissan R89C, the chassis will be manufactured by Lola Cars in Huntingdon, equipped with the latest Japanese 3.5-litre twin-turbo V8 engine and run by Howard Marsden’s NISMO UK operation in Milton Keynes.
Nominated drivers are Julian Bailey, who has failed to find further employment in Formula One after an unsuccessful year with Tyrrell, and last year’s works Lola Formula 3000 team-leader Mark Blundell. They will debut the new car at the first European round, after a Japanese-based crew has contested the series-opener at Suzuka in a 1988 chassis.
This will be Nissan’s first full World Championship programme, having competed only at Fuji and Le Mans in recent years using chassis built by March. FISA’s insistence that teams contest the entire series or not at all has also succeeded in attracting works entries from Toyota and Mazda.