Jordan Greer

The following was written by Nicolas Hammann, the 2014 GT Academy North American champion, as he offers an inside look at the Nissan Driver Development Program which he joined after winning this past season of the competition.

As you’ve probably heard by now, all eyes of the automotive world were on the North American International Auto Show this Monday for the unveiling of the new Ford GT. It’s a radical car, set to produce more than 600HP from a twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6 engine, complete with a full carbon-fiber body and active aerodynamics to compete with Europe’s finest.

Nissan is making waves in the endurance racing world this year with a new car to compete in the top LMP1 category at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and you’ll be able to drive it in Gran Turismo.

The 2015 Tokyo Auto Salon will be hosting a “Super Gran Turismo Competition” this weekend, which will see some of the country’s top professional drivers face off against one another along with some of the best GT players in the country.

French website AutoMoto.fr has published what it claims to be the first photos of Alpine’s new Vision Gran Turismo concept car. The site reports the car will be officially unveiled this month at a special presentation in Paris.

“Project CARS” – a new racing game from Slightly Mad Studios – is set to release in March, and it’s going to feature one very special car for our community here! The game’s RUF CTR3 SMS-R will be available in a full GTPlanet livery, conceived by GTP member Willfred_1 and custom designed by FLX1981.

2014 was a roller coaster of a year for Gran Turismo fans. Although GT6 didn’t evolve as quickly as many people expected after its December 2013 release, it has undergone a considerable transformation over the past twelve months and introduced some major “firsts” for the series.

The third annual Red Bull 5G competition was held in Tokyo, Japan last week, and the Gran Turismo 6 round of the country’s preeminent gaming contest offered the most excitement and drama at the event.

Mazda may be close to unveiling their Vision Gran Turismo project in GT6, according to a mention of the car in the game itself. GTPlanet user @smasherguy1020 noticed the “Mazda LM55 Vision Gran Turismo” appeared in a list of eligible LMP-class cars in an online racing room and reported it in our forums.

The maintenance is somewhat unusual: it’s occurring on one of the major holidays of the year, it’s just an hour long (most are two hours), and it’s only been a week since GT6 update 1.15 was launched. This reduces the probability of another update or more new content, but announced maintenance does usually precede update releases, so it can’t be entirely ruled out.

GT Academy has another new champion: 21-year old Nicolas Hammann of Elkhart Lake, WI!

There’s one last episode of GT Academy 2014 to be aired on Spike TV at 11:30pm ET tonight, and it’s a big one, with the conclusion of the competition and the revelation of a new GT Academy champion from North America.

Update 1.15 has just been released as a 589MB update for Gran Turismo 6, and brings with it one of the most radical concept cars the series has seen since the Nike ONE 2022 was introduced in GT4: the Chaparral 2X.

Polyphony Digital has just announced a collection of new Seasonal Events will be coming to Gran Turismo 6 in the next game update, running throughout the remainder of the holiday season until New Year’s Day. As noted in the blog post, up to 10 million credits will be up for grabs, so now would be a good time to start maxing-out your daily login bonus.

Polyphony Digital has announced that the online services for GT6 will be closed for maintenance during the early hours of Wednesday, December 17th, starting at 04:00 GMT/UTC and lasting for approximately two hours (click here to convert this to your local time).

After 12 months of development we are proud to announce GTPlanet’s third officially sanctioned GT6 Racing Series, the GTPlanet Endurance Series.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2mf85E_9cM

A new batch of races are now available in this week’s round of Gran Turismo 6 Seasonal Events, one of which features the ever-popular Laguna Seca Raceway. Here’s an overview of the new races; as always, stop by our GT6 Seasonal Events forum for more discussion!

You might not give much thought to the pedals on your driving rig. Unlike steering wheels, there simply aren’t that many standalone pedal sets out there in the market, and most people assume those provided with wheels from Logitech or Thrustmaster are adequate for the job…right?

GTPlanet has reached a major milestone today, as we celebrate more than 10,000,000 messages posted in our forums! This incredible number comes thirteen years, six months, and eleven days since the GTPlanet Forums were officially opened on May 14, 2001, with this rather unceremonious post by yours truly.