OREANDA-NEWS. March 30, 2016. Nissan Motorsport driver Michael Caruso heads to Tasmania's Symmons Plains Raceway this weekend with the points lead in the Australian V8 Supercar Championship.

Three consistent performances across the 2 x 125km and 1 x 250km races at the opening round of the championship in Adelaide pushed Caruso into the championship lead.

He backed up that performance with a another strong effort at the non-championship weekend at Albert Park in conjunction with the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix – completing the weekend with a fifth place finish.

Caruso arrives in Tasmania as the point leader for the first time in his career. The last time a Nissan driver sat at the top of the championship point score was back in June 1992 when Mark Skaife was crowned champion at the completion of the final round at Oran Park in Sydney.

This year is the 44th time an Australian Touring Car Championship/V8 Supercars Championship round has been held at Symmons Plains. Only Sandown Raceway in Melbourne has hosted the championship more times.

Caruso and teammates Rick Kelly, Todd Kelly and Dale Wood will hit the track for the first time on Friday, April 1 for the first practice sessions.

Qualifying sessions will be run on both Saturday and Sunday with the Nissan Altima squad doing battle over 50 laps on Saturday and 84 laps on Sunday.

NISMO Calendar

April 2-3:
V8 Supercars, Symmons Plains, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia

April 9-10:
Super GT, Okayama, Japan
Blancpain GT Sprint, Misano, Italy

April 16-17:
FIA WEC, Silverstone, England
ELMS, Silverstone, England
V8 Supercar, Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia
Pirelli World Challenge, Long Beach, California, USA

April 23-24
Blancpain GT Endurance, Monza, Italy
Pirelli World Challenge, Barber Motorsports Park, Alabama, USA