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.

While responding to a question on Twitter, Kazunori Yamauchi has thankfully shared some brief yet interesting information on the future plans for Gran Turismo 5. Here’s a human translation of his comments, kindly offered by GTPlanet community member Shirakawa Akira:

After nearly a month-long hiatus, GT5’s Seasonal Event updates have returned. The “World Compact Car” series is now available, open to cars with less than 450pp and less than 4200mm in length. Races take place at the following circuits:

European GT Academy winner Jann Mardenborough and his American counterpart Bryan Heitkotter faced the toughest challenge so far of their intensive ‘Driver Development Programme’ on Sunday, 24 July at Castle Combe. The pair campaigned their PlayStation® Nissan Team 370Z to a second-in-class finish (17th place overall) in the competitive Britcar Dunlop Production GTN Championship. The strong result in the two-hour endurance race secured each driver two more vital ‘signatures’ required for them to attain the international race licence that will allow them to compete in the Dubai International 24 Hour Race in January 2012.

Earlier this week, Kazunori Yamauchi announced (via rare English-language tweet) Polyphony Digital’s new offices in Fukuoka, Japan, are already up and running. Though initial news reports were lacking many hard details, more information has emerged about the details behind the move, suggesting more substantial changes for the company than was originally inferred.

European GT Academy 2011 winner Jann Mardenborough had another amazing weekend on-track, recording a notable first in class, third overall, finish at the Donington Park round of the Production Touring Car Trophy. More importantly, the weekend’s results have moved Jann another step closer to qualifying for an international race licence, necessary to compete at the next 24 Hours of Dubai. With the 19-year-old from Cardiff collecting valuable signatures at Donington, his licence has now been upgraded from National ‘B’ to National ‘A’, and his motor sport CV now reads; two race meetings, two podiums.

According to a new product listing on Amazon France, Gran Turismo 5 will be joining the PlayStation 3’s “Platinum Range” less than one year after its release, on October 5, 2011.

The GT5 Signature Edition Challenge, first announced last August, has come to a close, with Marco Calvo of Spain taking home the top prize: a brand-new Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG.

Well, this was certainly unexpected: Japanese news outlets are reporting that Polyphony Digital will be moving 50 of the company’s 150 employees more than 500 miles away, from Tokyo to Fukuoka, Japan. Apparently, the trauma Tokyo suffered during the Japan’s major earthquake earlier this year has prompted the move (Fukuoka is located in the western end of Japan, which generally sees less seismic activity compared to other parts of the country).

It was another busy weekend for real-world motorsports, and GT Academy stars were right in the action with great results. First up, Lucas Ordoñez and team Signatech Nissan were back on track at the the latest round in the ILMC 2011, the 6 Hours of Imola. The team drove a fast and consistent race, repeating their success at Le Mans with another excellent second-in-class finish, holding their lead in the points for the overall championship.

The latest GT5 Seasonal Event is now available, featuring Super GT cars. Races take place at the following locations:

As you may recall, today (June 30, 2011) was supposedly the last for GT5 Prologue’s online services. For unknown and unexplained reasons, Polyphony Digital has announced the service’s end-of-life has now been delayed (yes, there’s a lot of jokes to be made there) to September 30, 2011.

The latest GT5 Seasonal Event has just been posted, “La Festa Cavallino”, or “The Horse Festival”. Of course, the races feature production Ferraris with 650PP or less in the following events:

Remember GT5 Signature Edition Challenge, which offered the chance to win a real-life Mercedes SLS AMG? The unique B-Spec competition took place in January and the next stage has finally been announced, with the top-placed finishers headed to the Red Bull Ring in Austria for their chance to compete for the top prize.

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.

Just as it was with this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, Gran Turismo fans have another driver to cheer for in the Nurburgring’s 24-hour race: Kazunori Yamauchi. Here’s all the links you need to follow along:

The latest new Seasonal Event is now available in Gran Turismo 5, featuring British cars under 550PP and weighing less than 1,200kg. Races consist of the following:

The first complete interview with 2011 European GT Academy winner Jann Mardenborough has been posted to GT Academy’s Facebook page, and offers an interesting, inside look at the competition from the winner’s eyes. Once again, congratulations, Jann!

Kazunori Yamauchi has quietly returned to real-world racing. He was spotted at the four-hour ADAC Reinoldus-Langstrekenrennen Nurburgring VLN race in a Nissan GT-R, obviously inspired from the GT500 “Stealth” GT-R from Gran Turismo 5. His teammates include Tobias and Michael Schulze of Autohaus Schulze and Yasuyoshi Yamamoto, founder of Japanese tuning shop Opera Performance.

In the 7 months since Gran Turismo 5’s release, it’s never been officially suggested that additional downloadable content (“DLC”) would made available for the game – until now. While responding to a comment on the French PlayStation Blog, contributing Sony editor Guillaume Couturier shared an interesting bit of information (tip and human translation by bajwadu06):