Kazunori Yamauchi & Team Take Class Victory at 2011 Nurburgring 24 Hours

Kazunori Yamauchi, the father of Gran Turismo, and his teammates Tobias Schulze, Michael Schulze, and Opera Performance founder Yasuyoshi Yamamoto, finished first-in-class in the 2011 Nurburgring 24 Hours! It was a dramatic race for Team Schulze, who were forced to spend a concerning amount of time in the pits addressing mechanical issues with their race-modified Nissan GT-R.

Despite the setbacks, fast, consistent driving brought the team a class victory, with Kazunori himself bringing the car across the finish line. The team finished 36th overall (official results here), completing 134 laps in 24 hours, 2 minutes, and 26.9 seconds, with a fastest lap time of 9:17.707 around the extended, 24-hour circuit. Congratulations to Yamauchi-san and Schulze Motorsport!

Due to the scale and media coverage of the event, few pictures or videos of the team are available just yet. For now, enjoy this video of the team’s GT-R in action early Sunday morning, captured by YouTuber Mawitu23.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qrUfFpzTd8

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Comments (123)

  1. weeknee

    Serious question:

    Why was the fastest lap on a heavily R35 GT-R “only” ~9:17?

    Others driven around 8:30 – 8:45.

    I thought the GT-R rocks porsches etc. in the street versions.
    Why is it so slow in race conditions?

    Or do you think the drivers got held up by slower cars not able or willing to overtake? I could understand this.

    1. Aaron ray

      There is a difference between the full circuit and the nordschlief version; the full circuit includes the GP section, adding a LOT of distance to the track!!

  2. Madman Apex

    kaz being such a nissan/GTR fanboy and nissan sponsoring so many GT events i dont know how on earth there isnt an RM-GTR in GT5; only logic i can think of is that there already are all those from the SuperGT/JGTC… but one more on of so many wouldn’t kill us…

  3. neem'

    I really don’t see why Jordan allows comments on posts like this, the idiotic crap some people ‘share’ here is almost shocking given how well moderated the forums are here. Why not start a new thread for each post and let the comments be moderated under the AUP instead? I’m pretty sure 50% of post comments would be moderated if they were in the forums and maybe 10% would result in bans…

    Still, even finishing a 24 hour race is an achievement, maybe less so now than it was 10 or 20 years ago but to race that long with no serious accidents or mechanical failures, as well as the drivers being able to focus for such long stints, that’s something to be respected. I’d love to know what class they were in, though, and who the competitors were, and where they placed overall (I’m guessing it’ll be nearer the back of the grid, not specifying their overall position probably means it’s not worth boasting about, but that means little without knowing who was driving what).

    1. Murcie

      “The team finished 36th overall (official results here), completing 134 laps in 24 hours, 2 minutes, and 26.9 seconds,”

      They finished first in class. Hopefully I’ve saved you a little bit of reading that you didn’t seem bothered to deal with when you commented on this article.

  4. Brothan

    Lovely weekend at the ring a bit too long trip (1130km) with 5 really big guys in a vw passat.. Hopefully Kaz will understand that he needs more Porsches and Beemers in his game after this race.. Good job on driving the GTR anyhow !

  5. Vortex

    Wow nice, didn’t know that !!! I was there, but when ur watching the race from the stage there is no way of knowing the positions unless you focus on the guy screaming thru the speakers… In german.. I don’t speak german :P
    I was kinda worried at 2pm on sunday when I didn’t see their car for about a half hour. But when I saw them at the GP hairpin chicane it was a huge relief. It would be a shame if they broke down or crashed 2 hours before the race end.

    Great job Kaz and Team Shulze. Hope to see you next year !!

  6. Endi

    This is why he hasn’t released 1 dlc yet. Has he seen what is going on with forza or nfs, THEY ARE GETTING PRETTY GOOD !
    GT5 still is my favorite game, but it is really time to make a sort of DLC.

    1. Butters

      PD and Kaz don’t care about those games. Did you see their total sales? Ewwww. jk but, yea. They don’t care about other developers’ “simulators”.

  7. LoneWanderer

    Gulyo, the more you comment, the more I want to strangle you dead. You have been here for a long time, and have yet to make a SINGLE positive comment. If you hate GT5 or Yamauchi-san this much, then go sign up onto a Forza lobby or get a life!

    1. Tim Marshall

      I’ll give you a hand holding him under water. I just don’t understand. If you don’t like it fine. Don’t play it & don’t waste half your life in forums about something you don’t like. LOSERS!

    2. Gulyo

      I rebought the game and PS3 again BTW … but still … I’ve right … this is a rich man passion nothing more and you lick his boots … that is fact …
      That’s also a fact that PD relased half-ready game and patched it continuously.
      Well, and NO DLC so far.
      The truth is painful …

    3. infamousDee

      The only painful truth here is that PD are one of the only companies not to be screwing its customers over with overpriced DLC.

    4. Fargut MoMafh

      So the new spin after all these complaints is that he bought a second PS3 and game to replace the ones he said (many times) he sold due to extreme disgust and dissapointment with this game. A game that according to him, hasn’t really improved with updates. Or so he repeatedly posts anyway. And this is supposed to provide credibility to his trolling in some way?
      Add to that, now he complains that Kaz is rich and doesn’t sell a complete product?
      I know every time I find a product unsatisfactory, the first thing I do is buy it a second time, then complain that the manufacturer makes money off it. Facepalm epic troll think fail with a three quarter twist. Doooh!

  8. Gulyo

    seriously, who cares a rich mans passion … give us proper game instead ( not with 10 patch in 7 month )…
    RIDICULOUS !!!

    1. KFM

      Seriously, they need to make a vibrator attachment for Forza 3, so *ahem* people like you will play it all the time instead of trolling here and making everyone hate you.

  9. mardiearse

    how about sorting and fixing the game out that i paid good money for. They still no leaderboards or car class system that this game is die in out for

    1. Murcie

      Christ. Let the man have some fun in his life without having a few out of many millions of gamers complaining about every single little (dare I say pointless) thing that is wrong with his game.

      It ain’t all about Gran Turismo mate.

  10. BadLt58

    Great Job Kaz. Glad you drove for 24 hours straight all by yourself with no pause button. This is why I don’t buy that you’re too busy to fix this game. All smoke and mirrors. No new tracks but I have new helmets.

    Get your priority straight. Just another boondoggle on your studio’s dime. This guy wont make another game in 10 years.

    1. @RouseHouse

      Well, the only one supporting the OP is the resident troll gulyo, so that’s a pretty good hint…..

    2. brainfade

      Ever thing that Kaz may actually have a life unlike you BadLt58? Go do some research and have a look at how many businesses he’s involved in while you’re most probably in your parents basement

    1. Butters

      He is ONE of the greatest men for sureeee! And damn some of you guys are stupid. Some of us look up to him, so get the hell out of here.

  11. Rusty*

    Haha, well done to Kaz and the team! It’s great to see he is now becoming a regular at the 24 hours of Nurburgring!
    Rusty*

  12. SP8

    Kaz and the team won in their class, congrats!!! But we want to win the 24h in different classes too!

    1. HoffY

      Don’t be silly… he’s probably got a mini nord track in his backyard and 5 GT-R’s just to fly around it every Saturday. :P

    2. Meee

      @HoffY that wouldgrt him most of the practice he needs but he would need the 24 hour circuit not just nord

  13. Wallbreaker

    Met Kazunori today (sunday) in the paddock, he gave me an autograph on my Playstation jacket, took a photo with him and told me he was leading his class. Glad to hear he kept his position, well done, Kaz!

    1. ...........

      FORZA=Good enough that threatened GT fanboys still feel the need to utter the same lame BS arguments 7 months after GT5 was released…….

    2. brainfade

      don’t you fanboys ever think that Kaz, unlike yourselves, may ACTUALLY HAVE A LIFE? ….as in he has OTHER things in his life other than GT????

  14. RouseHouse

    Time to celebrate Porsche’s win by taking my Porsche 911 GT3 RSR for a spin on the ring! Oh wait… Well at least I can in Forza!

    1. RouseHouse

      Haha I know it sounded kinda flaming. I have both, but I haven’t used my 360 in about 5 months. I definitely prefer GT but I wish it had Porsches!

    2. Spaghettimonster

      oh, youre so right. back in the days i had an xbox and forza, the rsr would be the car id drive the most. :)

    3. brainfade

      don’t you fanboys ever think that Kaz, unlike yourselves, may ACTUALLY HAVE A LIFE? ….as in he has OTHER things in his life other than GT????

  15. AlphaAndius

    Schulze Motorsport won the SP 8T!? WOOOO!!! Amazing comeback!!! Especially given how much they fell behind. Kaz is gonna return to Japan and PD a hero, one more achievement in his racing career.

  16. Vindibudd

    Awesome, maybe he can go back and put 134 more Skylines in the game. We clearly don’t have enough.

    1. Vu

      I can’t stop laughing because it’s so true! There’s just aint enough skylines in the game! :) LOL

  17. Brent Zedilar

    Awesome news!! Great job to Team Schulze and especially to KZ. And just to think all this week I’m gonna be doing GT5 endurance races :)

    1. AlphaAndius

      Mmhh to get all 250 cars of this year’s Nurb, oy, thats already a huge task in and of itself. Only time will tell how many 24hNurb cars will be implemented in future DLC, or GT6 (Maybe 2-4 cars of each category would be awesome). It would be welcoming (Since id love to drive the Ferrari P4\5 Competizioni of the Nurb team, awesome car)

  18. Foxiol

    I saw the race and it was great. And i saw Kaz too!! I hope at least in the next GT we can play with all GT cars from the Nurburgring 24Hs race. Just put all cars Kaz!!! We need Porsches (the winner this year, Congrats!!), M3 GT3, Audi R8 LMS, Mercedes SLS GT3,and the list goes on…(hope for the next all cars will be Premium. We don´t need 1000 cars. Just put 500 or 600 all premium and cars that we want.
    And i am agree with “themartlab”…if we can´t get those cars (license issues) at least put a RM for the M3, the SLS and GT-R too.
    GT5 is great and today after the race i made a 8 lap race with the SLS in the Nurburgring 24hs…just amazing. (i´m playing now but i come here to see Kaz results.

  19. Aces & Eights

    Hopefully this brings some fantastic ideas to GT5 in the next Update. Congrats to Kaz and the Team of course! Wish I could have seen more of them!

    1. Uhnnng

      Yah, you get busted trolling for years about selling your ps3, all the while complaining about how much you hate the updates for a game you supposedly didn’t even own anymore, so first you try and say that you didn’t really sell your stuff all those times you claimed to over the last couple of years, (finnaly settling on march has the “real” date of sale), then when that fails, you tell everybody you bought it all back, obviously saying so just so you can resume trolling about dlc and such, and you can’t figure out why people don’t buy your act anymore? And your calling other people idiots……

  20. wazza89

    Well done to Kaz and the team. Some top quality exposure for the Gran Turismo series. Would love to have some of the cars that raced available in GT5 like the Porsche RSR (even if they have to fudge a different manufacturer name)

    1. AstonMartinGT5

      Yeah that would be pretty cool, I would quite fancy taking Aston’s V12 Zagato and Kaz and team’s GT-R out for a spin :D :D

    1. MM1000

      Motorsports fans generally care about races and outcomes of races. And that’s basically the most popular competitive event category on the planet.

      How is it you didn’t know that?

      Oh wait… you’re a troll.

    1. ADR_XCLUTCH

      Wow, I hope and pray that the PD gives the GT-R R35 the ability to be race modifiable so it can look like that beautiful GT-R.

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