HE has stood on the top tier of the podium in the Bathurst 24 Hour and Bathurst 1000 and come this Sunday, Todd Kelly will be aiming for success in another endurance epic at Mount Panorama.
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Kelly will steer one of the two Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3s in the Bathurst 12 Hour, sharing his seat with 2015 victor Florian Strauss and Welsh GT Academy graduate Jann Mardenborough.
“I’m really excited to race the GT-R at the Bathurst 12 Hour,” Kelly said.
“I'm looking forward to working with some new team-mates in the NISMO athletes. Florian has won the race before and Jann is one of the most exciting young drivers in the world.
“It will also be the first time in a long time that I will just turn up with my helmet and be a race driver. That will be interesting in itself.”
Though Kelly will be making his 12 Hour debut, both he and the NISMO GT3 have enjoyed success at Mount Panorama.
In 2003 Kelly was part of the team which took out the Bathurst 24 Hour behind the wheel of a Holden Monaro 427C. Two years later he celebrated a Great Race win when he and Mark Skaife prevailed in a VZ Commodore.
As for the NISMO GT3, it claimed the chequered flag in the 2015 Bathurst 12 Hour, while last year the team placed second.
Kelly got his first laps behind the wheel of the Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 on January 25. But even with the day of testing to his credit, he knows Friday’s practice sessions at Mount Panorama will still be about adjusting to his 12 Hour ride.
“Everything that you do in a Supercar is the opposite to what you do in a GT3 car. The GT-R is an absolute monster. It blows my mind,” Kelly said after testing.
“Bathurst is going to be quite a lot different to Winton – a lot faster, high speed and high lateral loads, but Winton is the kind of track that I need to have my first run in the GT-R.
“It has a lot of really hard braking and tight corners where I’ve been able to get used to the ABS and traction control.”
While Kelly will be adjusting to a new car, team-mate Mardenborough will be familiarising himself with the Mount Panorama layout.
The 25-year-old, who finished second in the 2016 All-Japan Formula Three, is excited to make his debut.
“It’s definitely bucket list. It’s one of the tracks that since getting into racing, I think that I would always have liked to have driven and raced on,” he said. “It’s one of those tracks you go to as a teenager, as a youngster playing PlayStation, because it’s a hard track to drive.
“It’s great as a driver to be cutting you teeth with all these professionals and we’re here to win. That’s our target and we are going to be doing the best we can to fulfil that.”
Practice for the 12 Hour starts 8.15am Friday.
