Caruso Urges Nissan engine Boost

Nissan Motorsport driver Michael Caruso has urged that Nissan Motorsport upgrades engine power to compete at the front in the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship.

Caruso finished 13th in the 2017 championship, the best of the four Nissan Drivers with only three top five finishes.

Now entering his Sixth championship with Nissan, Caruso believes the team needs to find power gains in order to compete with the Holden and Ford teams.

“For the average punter watching on, you can say the deficiency down the straight, so that only makes sense that we’re good in braking and in corner speed,” Caruso told Speedcafe.

“That’s sort of what we tend to believe and I guess what the microsectors show.

“We need to fix the engine, whether it be fuel economy and engine power; it’s constantly being pushed from everybody in the category to get the most out of that, along with having your cars handle really well.”

Last week Nissan announced that they had recruited Nick Ollia as Technical Director, the well authorized American joining the team before Christmas.

That added expertise is something Caruso hopes will help the team push forward.

“In terms of the team structure, I know that Todd (Kelly) and Scott (Sinclair) are pretty happy with it,” he said.

“I’ve been happy with the personnel that we’ve had, particularly on my car, it’s been pretty consistent having Steve(n Todkill) as my race engineer, which won’t change for this year.

“What goes on away from the race track is obviously an important part to help us to see some gains in between each event and hopefully before the season kicks off.

“So we’re hoping that this year, and particularly our experiences in the last two years, that we’re moving forward and that’s where, as it’s been well documented in the past, the engine’s probably been our biggest handicap,” Caruso added.

"We really need to get on top of that.

“I think when you see our results towards the end of last year, particular at Newcastle, our cars do handle really well and if we can get that engine online to the same level as everybody else has, I have no doubts that we can compete for some very good results.”

Helping his cause will be moving back to the 2016 Specification Dunlop Tyres, on which Caruso netted his lone Nissan Race win at Hidden Valley, through the remains circumspect about the boost it may offer him.

“I had one of my best years in the Nissans in 2016, so it worked really well for me,” he reasoned.

“We got on top of the 2017 tyre but not until the end.

“What we’ve learned in the last two years, we’ve got some good data there to start off with.

“Everybody keeps improving, so we can’t think that going back to the 2016 tyre that we’re going to be where we were. We need to find some gains, and hopefully we have.”

Caruso is set to receive his new 2018 Nissan Altima Chassis, which will have shakedown test before the official Supercars test at Sydney Motorsport Park on the 16th of February.

The opener for the 2018 Supercars Championship is in Adelaide for the Adelaide 500 from the 1-4 March.