Motorsport: Cassidy aims to peak at top of mountain on Fuji circuit

Nick Cassidy is well settled into his adopted country Japan.

New Zealand's Nick Cassidy was one of the early adopters of looking to the Asia region to further his career, rather than struggling to get a foothold in the expensive playing fields of Europe.

This weekend at Fuji, in Japan, Cassidy will again be behind the wheel of his Lexus LC500 GT looking to move back into the championship lead he lost at last round at Sugo, Murata.

Cassidy hit the ground running in his second tilt at the Japanese Super GT championship, leading the series over the first three rounds.

However, he and his co-driver Ryo Hirakawa came unstuck at the last round, with a puncture costing them and handing the lead over to Kazuya Oshima and Andrea Caldarelli.

"We're still close to the lead and now the field is closing up point's wise," Cassidy said. "It's almost getting to the stage where we reset to zero and it's a really important part of the season. I can't complain, and if you told me last year that in only my second season in the series I would be leading the first three rounds I would have not have believed it.

"The goal now that we are fighting for the championship, is to keep on fighting for it right to the end."

Cassidy is well settled into his adopted country Japan and has raced there since 2015 when he won the All Japan Formula Three championship. The following year he was snapped up the TOMS team to race in Super GT and this season he's back with the same outfit and turning a few heads.

If that's wasn't enough, Cassidy is also doing a full season of the highly competitive Super Formula single seater championship with Kondo Racing.

"The last couple of years I've felt really fortunate at being able to drive so much in different categories. I've developed a hell of a lot over the past few years and I think it's now showing.

"Both of these cars this year have their own cool things. At the end of the day the Super GT car is so fast with a lot of downforce that it is similar to driving the Super Formula car. The engines are the same and you've got massive downforce on both.

"I don't have a preference for either one, I love racing them both and they are similar to drive. It's the style of racing that's different. In single seater it's all about the start and you can't follow too closely. In GT, the racing is much closer and you have more opportunities to pass," said Cassidy.

This weekend's race is round five of the eight-round series and Cassidy is looking to make a push to stay in touch with the leaders despite a hefty balance of performance penalty due to being the series leader for three rounds.

On the shorter, tighter tracks the handling of the Lexus in part made up for the power restriction, but at the Fuji circuit it may be a problem.

The track is known as a high speed venue with it front long front straight where out and out horsepower will be king.

Super GT points
1. K Oshima/ A Caldarelli 41
2. N Cassidy/R Hirakawa 37
3. J Rossiter 36
4. H Kovalainen/K Hirate 35
5. Y Tachikawa/H Ishiura 30
6. K Nakajima 30
7. T Matsuda/R Quintarelli 26
8. S Motoyama/T Izawa 23