NISSAN and PlayStation have joined forces again to run the fourth year of the innovative GT Academy virtual-to-reality racing competition.
While the four previous GT Academy graduates line up in top-level race series in 2012, the programme that set them on their path to motorsport fame has been expanded and will now incorporate four separate competitions covering Europe, Germany, the USA and Russia.
More than 1.5 million hopefuls have tried out for the GT Academy since 2008, and graduates of the dreams-to-reality programme have so far netted a Le Mans 24 Hour podium and won the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup and Blancpain Endurance Series.
In January of this year an all-gamer line-up made history when they finished on the podium of the Dubai 24 hour race.
A brand-new gaming format for the European GT Academy will go live on May 1 and remain open until June 24. An eight-step qualification programme that can be played online by anyone with a PlayStation3, will use the best-selling Gran Turismo5 as a base, but has been specially developed by the game’s legendary creator, Kazunori Yamauchi.
The fastest PlayStation gamers from each country will join winners from a number of live events to compete in thrilling national finals in July. The action will then make the transition from the virtual world of PS3 to real Nissan sports cars when the winners of each National competition are invited to take part in the intense international Race Camp competition, which takes place at Silverstone Circuit in August.
The ultimate winners of each of the GT Academy competitions from Race Camp will then be put through an incredibly intensive and thorough Driver Development Programme to prepare them for the chance to take part in the challenging Dubai 24 Hours in January, 2013 – the ultimate competition prize.
Top-level motor sport
GT Academy is now established as a potential route into top-level motor sport. Lucas Ordoñez (Spain, winner in 2008) took second place at the 2011 Le Mans 24 Hour race and will aim for one better this year racing alongside father-and-son pairing Alex and Martin Brundle.
Lucas will also contest the full European Le Mans Series in the Greaves Motorsport Zytek-Nissan LMP2 car. Jordan Tresson (France, winner in 2010) is racing in the FIA World Endurance Championship and Le Mans 24 Hours in the Signatech Nissan LMP2 car.
Jann Mardenborough (UK, winner in 2011) is racing a Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 in the Blancpain Endurance Series while his American counterpart, Bryan Heitkotter, will drive a Nissan 370Z Nismo RC in the Grand-Am Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Series in the top GS (Grand Sport) class.