Watch Nismo GT-R sideways at 305km/h!

Masato Kawabata gets the GReddy GT-R sideways at 305km/h. Picture: Nissan

Masato Kawabata gets the GReddy GT-R sideways at 305km/h. Picture: Nissan

Published Apr 8, 2016

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Dubai, United Arab Emirates - Japanese drift champion Kawabata Masato has set a new Guinness word record for the fastest drift.

At a special event on the 3000 metre main runway at Fujairah International Airport on Thursday, Team Tokyo star Kawabata threw his specially tuned Nissan GT-R sideways at 30 degrees and held it there - at 304.96km/h!

That smashed the previous record of 217.973km/h, set in September 2013 by Polish drifter Jakub Przygonski on a military airbase in Biala in an 810kW Toyota GT 86, by almost 100km/h.

Drifting on Japan's scariest road

But Przygonski's benchmark was never the target. From the outset the goal was to raise the bar above 300km/h.

The record-breaking Nissan GT-R was developed and prepqared by GReddy Trust in collaboration with Nissan's Nismo racing division, who tuned its 3.8-litre V6 turbopetrol to a howling 1015kW and locked out the drive to the front wheels, so all of it went to the rear axle.

Recaro provided a special seat, Rays a set of lightweight forged-alloy rims and Toyo the custom-made drift tyres, specifically designed for this stunt.

And after a lot of testing at Fuji Speedway in Japan Kawabata was confident that, given enough runway, he could take the car up top well above 300km/h, chuck sideways and hold it there for the requisite number of seconds.

The team set up shop in a hangar at Fujairah, but they had just five days to get everything - from tools to tyres to telematics - in place and ready, three days to prepare the car and just three attempts to break the 300km/h barrier - that's all the Guinness judges would allow.

And you can watch the outcome for yourself below:

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