BRAESIDE, Victoria, Australia – Welcome back to Race Chaser Online’s 2017 Virgin Australia Supercars Championship season previews! We started with the Nissans on Friday and finish them today by looking at the Kelly brothers’ side of the garage.
Nissan Motorsport
DRIVERS: No. 7 – Todd Kelly, carsales Racing Nissan Altima
No. 15 – Rick Kelly, Sengled/ Castrol Nissan Altima
2016 TEAM POINTS FINISH: 7th
2016 HIGHEST RACE FINISH: Rick’s pair of fourth-place finishes at Symmons Plains and Winton
Most of the news in the Nissan Motorsport shops has come from the pit boom of Michael Caruso and Simona de Silvestro, but that shouldn’t take away the fact that the Kelly brothers are still there as ever!
When the green flag drops in Adelaide, the ninth season will begin for the Kelly brothers as owner/ drivers. They originally ran Holdens before the deal to come together as a Nissan factory team for the 2013 season took place, and have been behind the wheel of the Altimas since.
Last season was, like the other pit boom, marred by the cloud of speculation for a solid two-thirds of the year. Not even the Kelly brothers themselves were certain that they would be racing Nissans in 2017! The news that Nissan would extend their support through the 2018 season came in early September and was very welcome.
The agreement to bring Simona de Silvestro into the team was drafted and signed shortly thereafter, and all of a sudden, a team that might have been looking at a long offseason transitioning back to Holdens the month before was in a completely different position.
On the surface, the numbers posted by both Kelly brothers during the 2016 season don’t immediately grab one’s attention. Rick’s pair of fourth-place finishes in Tasmania and at Winton were the best two finishes either of the brothers had last season; there were no podiums between them.
Dig deeper, however, and the underlying statistics clearly indicate that Nissan Motorsport is trending in the right direction. Todd posted his best average start (15.8) and average finish (13.6) numbers since the Kelly brothers set out on their own, and Rick’s average starting position (11.3) was the best it had been since 2011. They combined for 21 top-ten finishes (nine for Todd and twelve for Rick).
Going into 2017, there are some aspects of the Kelly pairing and the Caruso/ de Silvestro pairing that are the same, since they all come out of the same shop – namely the addition of six new engineers and the new technical alliance with Dunlop Super2 team MW Motorsport. Those resources will be shared between all four Nissan teams.
It might also be those resources – and how the rest of what Nissan Motorsport has to offer is divided up and allocated across the four teams – that determines how the Kelly brothers ultimately perform this season.
What makes the Kelly brothers’ situation so intriguing is that they are the only two drivers that have control over the mechanical resources given to their own cars. Most drivers, since they are under contract, only can control variables that are directly affected by their own driving.
They could, in theory, devote the majority of their resources to their own two cars, but that would also likely mean the performances of Caruso and de Silvestro would suffer.
What we have seen in the past is that the Kelly brothers take the opposite approach, so that the cars in the other pit boom are the ones with more resources. It isn’t a problem to them if one of their other cars is the high performer. This was especially true in 2016, when Caruso was the fastest Nissan of the four.
Now, not only do the Kelly brothers have Caruso in their stable, but the largest “free-agent” acquisition of the off-season in de Silvestro too. Expect the Kelly brothers to ensure that she has all of the resources needed to succeed. The same should be expected for Caruso as well, as he will look to repeat last season’s success.
That might mean that the Kelly brothers don’t have as many resources going towards their own cars. They may end up sacrificing some of their own to help the rest of the team. But after the amount of time they’ve spent in the paddock, and with the way they have built their operation, the Kelly brothers’ methods need no questioning.
For more information on Nissan Motorsport, visit www.nissanmotorsport.com.au.
For more information on the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship, visit www.supercars.com.
About the Writer
James Pike is a multi-faceted reporter for Race Chaser Online and an analyst on the Motorsports Madness radio show, airing at 7 p.m. Eastern every Monday on the Performance Motorsports Network.
He is the lead correspondent for Race Chaser Online’s coverage of Australian Supercars and also covers regional touring series events in the Carolinas. He is a graduate of the Motorsports Management program at Belmont Abbey College and currently resides in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Email James at: [email protected]
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