Esports

With the GT5 GT Academy 2012 now available to gamers around the world, GTPlanet was able to get an interview with 2011 European GT Academy champion Jann Mardenborough. Jann was kind enough to answer a few questions for all the budding racing drivers and GT Academy hopefuls out there, to give insight into the before, during and after of the internationally successful Gamer-to-Racer program.

GT Academy 2012 has been online for just over a day now, and the numbers coming in are staggering: in the past 24 hours, over 63,000 players from around the world have driven over 2 million miles, in over 3 million attempts at the mini-game’s 10 available time trial challenges.

The search for the next generation of GT Academy champions begins today! This year’s competition will be bigger than ever before, open to players in more than 15 countries in four different regions:

The first batch of GT Academy 2012 details raised almost as many questions as they answered; most importantly, how would the competition evolve and how would competitors advance over the 8 weeks of competition?

As announced earlier this week, GT Academy 2012 is about to kick off next month in four different regions around the globe.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

The brakes have barely cooled down on the GT Academy Dubai 24hr team‘s Nissan 370Z, but it seems GT Academy 2012 may be just round the corner – at least for the Europeans.

After 24 hours contending with the heat, dark and fireworks of Dubai, the all-GT Academy team of Lucas Ordoñez, Jordan Tresson, Bryan Heitkotter and Jann Mardenborough managed to bring their RJN Motorsport Nissan 370Z home in a creditable 3rd place in class and 26th overall:

All fans of driving games should be aware of this by now, but today marks the start of a most unique race. A seat in the Dubai 24 Hours has been the ultimate prize in all GT Academy events to date but today, for the first time, the car is driven exclusively by GT Academy alumni – with 2011 winners Bryan Heitkotter and Jann Mardenborough joining Jordan Tresson and Lucas Ordoñez behind the wheel of the RJN Motorsports Nissan 370Z.

With the 2012 Dubai 24 hour race fast approaching on 12-14th January, Nissan have published a “GT Academy: Road to Dubai” video serial that’s been broadcast on EuroSport since last September.

In addition to the all-GT Academy team campaigning in the Dubai 24hrs this month, Signatech Nissan team boss Philippe Sinault has announced his intended driver line-up for the 2012 World Endurance Championship:

U.S. GT Academy winner Bryan Heitkotter recently sat down for an in-depth one-on-one video interview with InsideSimRacing‘s Darin Gangi. Bryan discusses his background, what it was really like to come up through the ranks of GT Academy USA, and how he’s making the most out of his time with Nissan in preparations for the 24 Hours of Dubai.