Nissan's new GT-R endured an ultimately frustrating debut in the FIA GT Championship after the 2010-spec GT1 car was forced to retire from the season opener at Silverstone.

The car, run by Gigawave Motorsport, was one of three of the 'new' GT1 car to be entered in the race alongside a pair of Ford GTs and qualified in eleventh on the grid in the hands of Darren Turner and Michael Krumm.

The Nissan then climbed up to eighth place by lap 28 but was forced to retire after running into a problem with the rear suspension.

While the end result proved to be disappointing, Nissan Motorsport team principal Yasuharu Kemei said there were plenty of positives to be taken from the weekend as the team now turns its focus to the Spa 24 Hours and its next outing with the car.

“The development has been going very well since the shakedown in December last year,” he said. “In fact, before coming to Silverstone, our car has completed more than 6,000km through a number of pre-season tests without any major troubles.

“For sure, the race result is disappointing for the team, but we were successful in confirming the performance of the NISSAN GT-R in the race when our car was leading the Ford GT which is believed, like our car, to be built according to the next-generation 2010 FIA GT1 regulations.

“We learnt a great many lessons over the weekend, and will tackle them with solutions when we return to the workshop so that we can make the car fully ready for the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, the biggest challenge of the year for us.”