Jordan Greer

There’s some good news confirmed in a new article from Auto Express – a “secret” demo was apparently at last weekend’s 24-hour race, which showed the Green Hell at night. They were also able to confirm that the race-spec Lexus IS-F which Yamauchi drove in the event will be included in the game:

Here’s the latest batch of videos from GT5’s Nurburgring GP Course, featuring a Corvette ZR-1 and Lexus SC430 Super GT car. While you watch, look for this interesting detail in the game’s menu system: the ZR-1, Audi R8, and CirtoenGT are listed as “Premium” cars. That’s interesting, because as we know from the semi-official GT5 feature list, Premium models will feature the game’s more violent damage system. Because we’ve only seen rally cars get busted up, it was initially assumed that only racing or rally cars would be in this Premium category, but now it looks like that may not be the case…

Our old friend mimaximax travelled to Germany this past weekend to experience the Nurburgring GP demo first hand! Here’s his latest video, providing us with an in-car gameplay video of the Enzo Ferrari around the new Nurburgring GP circuit.

You’ve probably seen Sony’s recent marketing campaigns featuring “vice president” Kevin Butler (played by actor Jerry Lambert) talking about the company’s latest first-party titles. His most recent clip focuses on Sony’s latest kart racing game Mod Nation Racers, but at the end he mentions his “next project – let’s just say it’s a little racing game that rhymes with ‘man furismo jive'” with a knowing look – understandably raising quite a few eyebrows in our forums and around the web.

Here’s our first look at the Nurburgring GP course and the newly-revised Nordschleife in motion. Pay special attention to all of the spectators which have been added around the Nordschleife, which we first saw in last week’s batch of screenshots. Thanks to all who sent these in!

As many of you know, the father of the Gran Turismo series is competing in the Nurburgring 24 Hours race, going on right now. He’s driving the #72 Lexus IS-F with teammates Hideshi Matsuda, Owen Mildenhall, and Peter Lyon (learn more about them here). You can monitor their progress live on the race’s official website – they’ve even got streaming video coverage available right here. For audio coverage in English, tune in to Radio Le Mans (thanks for the shout-out on the air , guys!). I’ll update this post when the results are in. Good luck, Yamauchi-san!

This isn’t so much “breaking news” as it is “peace of mind”: Sony has prominently featured GT5 on its special E3 2010 website (click and drag the page to view the top left corner). This is, of course, a pleasant change from last year, when Sony actually requested the press not ask Yamauchi about the big game during interviews for what are now obvious reasons. E3 kicks off with Sony’s press conference at 11:30 AM PST on June 15th. As always, I’ll have everything you need to know right here, updated by the minute on the (hopefully) big day…

Peter Lyon, a MotorTrend editor who will be joining teammate Kazunori Yamauchi for this weekend’s 24 Hours Nurburgring race, was first to try out the latest demo including the Nurburgring GP circuit and described it as “simply stunning”. His most notable observation, though, was that of a new penalty system:

The Nurburgring GP Course has just been confirmed for Gran Turismo 5 in a German press release! All three configurations of the track (Nordschleife, GP, and the full VLN Circuit) will be available. Better yet, we’ve got beautiful new screenshots of the new circuit, showing a lot of trackside details have been included and updated. We first picked up on the possibility of the circuit coming to GT5 when its grandstands were visible in this GT PSP trailer, and fortunately it looks like that turned out to be an actual clue. Keep reading for the translated press release and new images. Thanks to Stefan1904 for the tip!

Things are pretty quiet as we wait for E3. Thankfully, to keep things interesting, our old friend mimaximax is back in action and has delivered a fresh video clip. This time, though, instead of his notoriously funky tunes, we actually get to hear the in-game sounds. According to the description, the video was recorded “from a 1080p Bravia screen (KDL-40X2000), in 1080i using a tripod, a Canon Legria HF200 and a Zoom H2 recorder”. Enjoy!

GTPlanet’s own Maziar Shahsafdari (Synwraith) joined RJN Motorsports last weekend for their first race of the season, and he’s come away with a new appreciation for GT Academy winners Jordan Tresson and Lucas Ordoñez. His close contact with everyone in the team has provided an inside look at who these guys really are, and explains how their mental toughness sets them apart from the rest of us. It’s a great read, and I guarantee you’ll come away from the article with a new perspective on the GT Academy program and the driving talent it has discovered so far. Click here to check it out, and be sure to leave a word of thanks to Maziar for all of his hard work in putting this together (thanks again, Maz!)! I’d also like GTP reader Casey for sharing the following pictures from last weekend’s race:

As if you needed any more reasons to get excited about the possibilities in GT5‘s Photomode, here’s two sharp new images of the SLS AMG on the Nurburgring.They’ve been released on the announcement that the SLS AMG/Nurburgring demo, which has been featured at the Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart, will soon be playable at Mercedes dealers across Europe. So, if you’ve got a dealership close by, be sure and keep an eye out for it.

In what is presumably the last of Kazunori Yamauchi’s round of interviews to emerge from his time at Snetterton, he’s made a comment regarding the development status of the big game:

The 2010 racing season is kicking off around the world, and GTPlanet is proud to support the first GT Academy winner Lucas Ordoñez in this year’s GT4 European Cup and TKi Motorsport, competing in the NASA Pro Racing Northeast Series here in the United States. Both are off to a great start, with TKi having scored a podium finish in their first race. I’ll be sharing occasional updates about their progress, or you can easily monitor their updates with Facebook or Twitter at the links below. Good luck, guys!

In an interview with Japanese show “Love Cars!”, Yamauchi hinted at updates to GT5’s damage modeling:

We know the GT Academy 2010 Silverstone finals were intense, but what was it really like? For those of us who couldn’t make it (or were geographically excluded from the competition…), here’s the complete experience on video, showing what the competitors went through during each day of the finals. Watch all of the clips below, and don’t forget to check out video from the first GT Academy finals as well!

During his time at Snetterton to watch the two GT Academy 2010 finalists compete for the top spot, Kazunori Yamauchi talked with quite a few journalists. His last interview to be published is with BBC’s TopGear. As you would expect, there aren’t any bombshells, but here’s the most notable quotes:

One of the more unpleasant surprises we’ve had waiting for Gran Turismo 5 was the unexpected postponement of the game’s March 2010 Japanese release. It was a quiet announcement, but set a somber tone at the beginning of the year for us eager fans. Since that time, we have not received any sort of information on exactly why that happened – until now. In an excellent interviewwith Dean Gibson of AutoExpress last weekend, Yamauchi-san clarified things a little bit:

Remember JR Rocha‘s heavily modified Infiniti G37, which won immortality in the GT Awards at SEMA 2008? We got to see a few high-res screenshots of the car at last year’s show, but now here it is in action around the Nurburgring in one of mimaximax’s latest videos. It looks a bit odd to see a car like this on the Green Hell, but I’m sure this clip would bring a smile to the face of its late owner.

CVG has the scoop on an interesting quote Yamauchi made while talking to their sister magazine, PSM3: