Cars

GT Academy champion Lucas Ordoñez scored his first Super GT victory in the series’ latest round at Thailand’s Chang International Circuit last weekend. Lucas and his teammate Kazuki Hoshino held off highly experienced driver Jorg Müller in the Studie BMW Z4 GT3 car.

This guest contribution is by Nick McMillen, 2013 United States GT Academy Champion. This is the account of his journey as one of the newest Nismo Athletes. Stay tuned for future articles from our racing driver contributor coming soon as he experiences and progresses through his professional career.

Nissan’s Alex Buncombe put on a world-class performance at the Nurburgring in Germany today, after jetting in from Australia where he did a great job in his first V8 Supercars race last weekend. The British racer has been mentor to all of the GT Academy winners since 2008 and at today’s season-closing Blancpain Endurance Series race it was clear to see why they all learn so much from him.

Nissan will begin the search for an American star to join its new LM P1 Le Mans 24 Hour and FIA World Endurance Championship team, giving a former gamer the opportunity to graduate to the highest levels of the sport.

2012 GT Academy U.S. champion Steven Doherty scored a first-in-class victory in the final race of the Pirelli World Challenge while behind the wheel of his #94 Skullcandy Team Nissan TC Altima.

When Kazunori Yamauchi accepted the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge from Forza Motorsport’s Dan Greenawalt last week, he took the opportunity to pass along the challenge to two more people: Lucas Ordoñez, original GT Academy champion, and Ken Kutaragi, the “Father of PlayStation” who was instrumental in the design and development of the original console.

As you probably know, the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge” has taken the world (and social media) by storm over the past few weeks. It’s resulted in a lot of fun videos of people getting cold water poured over their head, and it’s raised more than $88.5 million dollars to help victims of ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and help fund a global team of researchers looking for a cure.

Each year at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance – the world’s most famous and prestigious car show – Kazunori Yamauchi selects a car to be awarded the “Gran Turismo Trophy”, after which it will be digitized and immortalized in the Gran Turismo series.

This guest contribution is by Nick McMillen, 2013 United States GT Academy Champion. This is the account of his journey as one of the newest Nismo Athletes. Stay tuned for future articles from our racing driver contributor coming soon as he experiences and progresses through his professional career.

Jann Mardenborough had another successful weekend in the GP3 Series, taking a podium finish at the Hungarian round of the championship.  The young Brit had to work hard in Saturday’s race – he qualified in 13th place after a red flag stopped his fastest run – but he got stuck in and took a very creditable seventh.  This put him on the front row of the grid for race two on Sunday.“I didn’t get as good a start as yesterday and Patrick (Niederhauser) got the jump on me,” explained Jann. “I settled in to third place and managed to hold onto it for the full race, despite the pace not being as good as yesterday.“It’s great to get a podium, and of course last week’s win, which takes me into the summer break with lots of new points.  This also builds my confidence for the next round at Spa so I can’t wait for that to come around now.”

Nissan and GT Academy head back to the fabled Spa-Francorchamps Circuit for their third run at the Blancpain Endurance Series flagship race. The team and drivers’ have experience on their side and are more determined than ever to take the top step on the podium in 2014.

Schulze Motorsport has published a video which documents the team’s dramatic experience at this year’s Nurburgring 24 Hours.

Three years ago, Jann Mardenborough had never sat in a race car. Today he’s carrying the big silverware away from the GP3 Series round at Hockenheim.

Nissan has shuffled its driver line-ups ahead of this month’s Spa 24 Hours. In the No.35 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 squad – already strengthened by the addition of two-time Super GT GT500 Champion, Masataka Yanagida –  Mark Shulzhitskiy replaces his Russian counterpart Stanislav Aksenov and joins Katsumasa Chiyo and Miguel Faisca.

Making it to any GT Academy final is tough enough, but when you’re competing in the newest region of the annual competition with a billion countrymen, it’s a bit more special.

While not the busiest weekend of the summer for the Nismo Athletes, there were still seven men and four cars doing their day jobs around Europe yesterday.

It’s been the busiest week of GT Academy’s summer of racing, facing 24 hours in Pays de la Loire one weekend and another 24 in the Eifel hills the next – and fortune didn’t follow the graduates this time.

It’s not even been a week since the highs and lows of the Le Mans 24 Hours and the GT Academy team are in action again, this time at the fearsome Nürburgring 24 Hours.

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