Micheal Caruso will now drive under the #23, Nissan's traditional racing number.
Micheal Caruso will now drive under the #23, Nissan's traditional racing number.
Michael Caruso will carry Nissan's most famous racing number this year as his Nissan Altima adopts the number 23 for the 2015 V8 Supercars Championship.
Caruso will race the #23 NISMO Nissan Altima, which will race in official Nissan NISMO colours and now also carry the manufacturer's official racing number.
'Two' in Japanese is pronounced as 'ni' and 'three' as 'san', making 'Ni - San' (twenty three) the favoured racing number for Nissan and NISMO globally.
In 2015 the #23 will be used by the innovative Nissan GT-R LM NISMO in the Le Mans 24 Hours and World Endurance Championship in the premier LM P1 class.
"It is a great privilege for me to race using the #23 this year," said Caruso.
"The plan at the start of the year was for me to use the #10, which was a number I'd used in my early racing years, but the opportunity to embrace Nissan's own #23 was too good to pass up." Said Caruso.
"As the official factory team of Nissan in Australia, it makes sense that we have the #23 somewhere in our four car program, and it made even more sense this year now that my Altima is using the official factory colour scheme." He added.
The NISMO entry in the Super GT Championship also wore the famous number when the #23 Motul Autech Nissan GT-R NISMO GT500 won last year's title. The Nissan GT-R also carried #23 to Super GT Championship victories in 1998, 2003 and 2008.
Other Nissan victories of note that featured #23 race cars include the 1992 Daytona 24 Hours (#23 Nissan R91CP), 1999 British Touring Car Championship (#23 Nissan Primera) and 2011 FIA GT1 World Championship (#23 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT1).
The new Nissan GT-R LM NISMO will also display the #23 racing number this year at the 24-Hours of Le Mans.
The Nissan GT-R LM NISMO will not be the first Nissan race car to wear #23 at Le Mans, with the Nissan GT-R LM and Nissan R390 both racing with the famous number at Circuit de Le Sarthe in the 1990s
Nissan's global GT3 program also features the #23, with the Nissan GT Academy Team RJN entry at the recent 2015 Dubai 24 Hours scoring a fifth place (and second in class) finish in the #23 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3.
Following on from that strong result, the NISMO Athlete Global Team took victory at the 2015 Bathurst 12 Hour earlier this month in the #35 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 (#35 a nod to the R35 model Nissan GT-R) with drivers Katsumasa Chiyo, Wolfgang Reip and Florian Strauss.
Caruso's first hit-out in the #23 NISMO Nissan Altima V8 Supercar will be at the Clipsal 500 on the streets of Adelaide this weekend, alongside his three factory Nissan team-mates James Moffat (#99 Nissan Altima), Rick Kelly (#15 Nissan Altima) and Todd Kelly (#7 Nissan Altima).
