Nissan has fired the first shots of the 2015 V8 Supercars Championship season, with Todd Kelly posting the day’s fastest time at the sydney.com SuperTest at Sydney Motorsport Park.

It was the first time on track the 25 cars in 2015, and teams used the track-time to find solid, consistent pace across the day’s sessions, before a quick-fire 10-minute period late in the final session where times tumbled.

Kelly piloted his Nissan Motorsport Altima to a 1:29.5352, eight-thousandths of a second faster than second placed man, the Holden Racing Team’s James Courtney.

But later the two-time Bathurst winner played down the speed of his Nissan, saying that he believes he was on better quality tyres than many of his rivals.  

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Kelly said.

“There is quite a lot of time left in the car, and I’m not sure whether many people ran quality tyres, so I don’t want to read too much into where we ended up.

“We’re genuinely in the Top-10 … we’ll see tomorrow.”

Kelly’s pace capped a quality day for all four of Nissan Motorsport’s entries, with younger brother Rick topping the first two sessions.

The two other Nissans of Michael Caruso and James Moffat also finished the day inside the Top-10, giving an indication that the Japanese make may well be a player in 2015.

“The guys have been very, very busy, refining our package to the point where we are competitive,” Rick Kelly said.

“We don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves though, I think we were up the front at the test day last year as well. In comparison to last year we’re even stronger again, so it really does show that the hard work is paying off.

“For us to have two first places and a fifth in my car and for Todd to top the times in the last session is great for his confidence, and great for our confidence as a team.”

Todd Kelly’s result comes after a tough 2014, where he questioned his place in the sport after finishing 22nd in the Championship standings. Kelly is both a driver, and boss of his team, Nissan Motorsport.

Nissan Motorsport were the talk of the field all day, with rival teams keeping a watchful eye on the newly speedy Nissans.

The speed from the Altimas comes following a revision to the Nissan’s aero package for 2015, with significant modifications to their car over the Christmas break.

Michael Caruso finished third, Lee Holdsworth, now part of Walkinshaw Racing was fourth, David Reynolds came home fifth, with the final Nissan shared by James Moffat and Taz Douglas sixth, and Craig Lowndes, Garth Tander and rookie Ash Walsh with Erebus Motorsport rounding out the top 10.

Others to note include Mark Winterbottom 12th – the first of the FG X Falcons, Marcos Ambrose 15th and reigning champ Jamie Whincup 18th.

The sydney.com SuperTest continues tomorrow at Sydney Motorsport Park, with FREE admission and the True Colour Track Walk on the main straight where fans will be able to see their favourite cars and meet their heroes.

Sunday features the ARMOR ALL SuperShootout, where all 25 cars will do a one-lap dash around the track to find the fastest driver of the weekend.

Fox Sports will televise Sunday live from 9am to 4pm including an hour long season preview show and an introduction to some of the new technology and innovation to feature across the 2015 season.