Dateline Bathurst, Australia – The Nissan GT-R legend continues to grow as the fierce performance icon has taken another significant victory at Mount Panorama after scoring a dramatic victory in the 2015 Bathurst 12 Hour.

After a race full of drama, crashes, and too many laps by the safety cars, Japanese star Katsumasa Chiyo passed two cars on the penultimate lap to secure a remarkable win for the NISMO Athlete Global Team.

The victory for Chiyo and GT Academy winners Wolfgang Reip and Florian Strauss is the first time that the Nissan GT-R has won at Mount Panorama since an R32 variant took back-to-back Bathurst 1000 wins in 1991 and 1992.

Nismo drivers Katsumasa Chiyo, Wolfgang Reip, and Florian Strauss.

The crowd at the top of the Mount Panorama roared as Chiyo put the Nissan into the lead, a fairytale story after the car was damaged in a qualifying crash on Saturday, with repairs to the #35 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 only completed at 4:30 a.m. local time on Sunday morning, race day.

Strauss was especially ecstatic to take the victory and see the checkered flags fly, as he was a late recruit to the event when the team’s regularly scheduled driver, Alex Buncombe, was unable to attend the event due to the birth of his first child. Strauss has only been a racing driver for 18 months following his win in GT Academy in 2013.

“It is just unbelievable because I couldn’t imagine that end of the race, with a strong Audi and Bentley and we are still in the amateur class,” quipped a jubilant Chiyo. “The car is very good. It is very strong on the straight. I tried to imagine, it was just amazing, we couldn’t know what would happen in the race, but we just tried our best in the moment and then I knew I had a chance right after that final restart. It was just awesome. The car was amazing, and so was the team.”