Andrew Evans

Despite the focus on GT Academy, Polyphony Digital have stuck to their Seasonal Event cycle schedule and added two new Time and Drift Trials. This week’s focus is on the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution road car, with an unusual appearance from a snow circuit in the Time Trial section:

In the last few minutes Penrose Tackie, European Brand Manager for GT5, has confirmed the schedule for GT Academy 2012 and there’s been a couple of small changes…

While the rest of us wait for GT Academy to start next month, the winners of previous academies continue to make their names in world motorsports and demonstrate the success of the GT Academy program.

Following last year’s successful Asia Online tournament, SCEA have today launched a second event.

Announced this morning via Twitter, Lucas Ordoñez will shortly find himself driving a Nissan GT-R at the punishing Nürburgring 24 Hour race.

Although many of us were expecting a start date for the European GT Academy in March, the recent update delay seemed to have put this on hold.

After relatively successful pre-race preparations for the GT Academy graduates, their relative fortunes took a turn for the worse come race day.

Following Jordan Tresson’s disappointing season-opener in the Sebring 12 Hour race two weeks ago, two more GT Academy graduates are involved in their own race series debuts this weekend.

As reported a month ago, the Photo Stream service of Gran Turismo 5 has now gone live. Using this function, any photo set by any player to “Share with Friends” will be anonymously published to the official Gran Turismo website for anyone to see, rather than limiting your works to only the people on your PSN Friends list. There is, however, a small catch in that the service is not available yet to users outside Japan and Asia:

Following the GT Academy drivers’ successes in the Dubai 24 Hours in January, we brought you news of the three European drivers’ schedules for 2012. As promised, we now have news on Bryan Heitkotter’s plans for the coming season.

Following on from the GTPlanet blog post late last week, GTP members have been back to the famous Mount Panorama circuit at Bathurst to catch the Polyphony crews at work.

Some new rumours have been hitting the GTPlanet forums, as Polyphony Digital have been reported to be scanning another real-life track – the Mount Panorama Circuit at Bathurst, Australia.

For many GT players a driving wheel is a must but, no matter what wheel you choose, you need a sturdy place to mount it. While there remains plenty of choice in the commercial driving rig market from such names as rSeat, Wheel Stand Pro and VisionRacer, many gamers also enjoy creating their own, often cheaper, and there are many threads in our Sim Racing Hardware forum of such builds.

Announced today on the official Gran Turismo website (and through the in-game news function) is a new feature to appeal to all the Gran Turismo shutterbugs, named “Photo Stream”. In essence this feature allows you to share your finest images, anonymously, with the entire Gran Turismo community through an as-yet unpublished URL:

Following on from the earlier videos in the Road to Dubai series, Sony/Nissan GT Academy have now released a sixteenth episode, chronicling the progress of the drivers through the race itself.

More Time and Drift trials have been added to Gran Turismo 5‘s Seasonal Event lists and fans of the game’s US road cars will be pleased. Each of the two events features a trial involving American non-race cars – limited by PP in the Time Trial and by tyres in the Drift Trial – along with two further open-to-all challenges. Here’s the numbers you’ll need to know:

US automotive giant Ford is the latest car manufacturer to acknowledge the effect that video games have on brand recognition and vehicle sales, particularly in the 20-30 demographic.

Nissan Europe has today issued a press release detailing the campaigns their three GT Academy graduates will be driving in the 2012 season.

In an unusual twist following on from yesterday’s news that GT Academy is rumoured to be returning to Europe this March, German website Speedmaniacs reports that Germany is to get its own GT Academy for 2012 rather than being part of the European GT Academy. This rather unique situation is corroborated by an article posted on the German PlayStation Blog site.