RJN Motorsports

Welcome to the 100th edition of the Wednesday Want! To celebrate in style we are once again bringing you a piece of Gran Turismo history. However, unlike the Art Morrison Corvette and the ‘51 Ford Coupe, this car is not from the GT Awards. Instead, it has an important connection to GT Academy.

International 2015 GT Academy winner Matthew Simmons will be joining forces with Nismo in another season of the Blancpain GT Series. Once again operating under the RJN Motorsports banner, Matthew will compete in the Pro Class using the trusty Nissan GT-R (#22). Racing colleagues Matt Parry and Struan Moore will be sharing the driving duties, with the team target being podium placements.

The final online qualification round of GT Academy 2014 kicks off today, as the time trial which will be used to determine who moves on to regional finals around the world.

European GT Academy 2011 champion Jann Mardenborough and his teammate Alex Buncombe were back in action last weekend, competing at Snetterton in the latest round of the 2012 British GT Championship.

As the Donington 6 Hours approaches this weekend, GT Academy’s inaugural winner Lucas Ordonez has added another 24-hour race to his schedule, as it was announced today that he would join the GT Academy Team RJN squad in the Spa 24 Hours at the end of the month.

Thanks to an invite to the race day on behalf of Nissan and RJN Motorsport from Glen Gibson at Jardine International, daan and I were able to spend the day in and around the busy garage of the #35 Nissan Nismo GT-R GT3 – trying our hardest to stay out of the way. With the race over, Jann Mardenborough and RJN Motorsport team boss Bob Neville were kind enough to answer a few questions from us and Calvin de Freitas of Jardine:

In addition to being granted full access to GT Academy 2011 winners Jann Mardenborough and Bryan Heitkotter, GTPlanet also had the pleasure of interviewing RJN Motorsport team principal Bob Neville on the team’s prospects for the Dubai 24 Hour race, the development of this year’s winners and the GT Academy programme as a whole.

Following in the footsteps of GT Academy champions Lucas Ordoñez and Jordan Tresson, European GT Academy 2011 winner Jann Mardenborough and his US counterpart champion Bryan Heitkotter would conclude their intense driver development programme at the Britcar “Into The Night” 3-hour endurance race around Brands Hatch circuit. This race would signify the last segment of the pair’s development campaign and their last competitive race before the GT Academy 2011 grand prize, the chance to compete at the prestigious Dubai 24 hour race.

Last weekend, 2010 GT Academy winner Jordan Tresson became the second of Nissan’s graduates to win an international championship. Along with his RJN Motorsport team mates, Alex Buncombe and Chris Ward, he took the Nissan 370Z to the GT4 title in Sunday afternoon’s season-closing Blancpain Endurance Series race at Silverstone.

The GT Academy 2011 driver development programme shifted up a gear last weekend when European winner Jann Mardenborough had his first competitive outing in a 420bhp Nissan 370Z GT4 race car. Racing in the Welsh Sports and GT Championship at Pembrey, Wales, the gamer-turned-racing driver recorded two strong third place finishes and a fourth in the weekend’s three races.

After one of the most gruelling ‘Total 24 Hours of Spa’ in many years, the RJN Motorsport Nissan 370Z of Jordan Tresson, Alex Buncombe and Chris Ward crossed the line as the GT4 race winner! This marks the first international victory for a GT Academy winner and indeed for the production class Nissan 370Z.