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Kelly Racing Nissans to undergo aero parity changes

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The Supercars Commission has announced that Kelly Racing will be allowed to modify their Nissan Altimas ahead of the next Supercars round in the newest wave of parity adjustments.

After changes were made earlier in the season to the so-far dominant Ford Mustang and then the Holden Commodore, the Nissan entries have had a request to make adjustments to their front undertrays and bootlid Gurney flaps.

The changes come off the back of a submission by Kelly Racing to the Supercars Commission with CFD data, backed up by a test which was approved after the Ipswich SuperSprint round.

Team owner Todd Kelly says the changes are a small step towards getting their car back towards the front of the grid.

“We’re pretty happy with what we’ve been able to do to the car,” he said.

“There’s been a few changes on the other two makes to get everything a little bit closer and our car’s quite a lot different in its bodykit to what they are.

“To do anything significant isn’t an option mid-year but what we’ve been able to come up with, I think, is a pretty good compromise with a little bit of a trim on the front and a small modification on the bootlid.

“It should give us a better race car for the second half of the year.

“We’re not expecting to jump up 10 spots on the grid but it’ll certainly be a little bit better than what we’ve had and more importantly a little bit more tuneable.”

Head of motorsport for Supercars and former team principal Adrian Burgess detailed what the changes will mean for the Kelly Racing cars.

Kelly Racing asked for more time before making an adjustment and obviously we want them to make a positive adjustment,” Burgess said.

“This change doesn’t fundamentally give them any more downforce, but it moves what they’ve got more rearward and makes the car less pitch-sensitive.

“It hopefully offers more of a workable platform for the drivers and engineers, opening up the set-up window.”

Kelly Racing will assess the changes during their in-season test day in Winton on August 13 ahead of next round at The Bend on August 23-25.