Regional finals for GT Academy 2011 are taking place around Europe, and the official results from the UK & Ireland event are in with two GTPlanet members earning tickets to Silverstone! 19-year-old Jann Mardenborough (TECHNIKRS4) from Cardiff and 29-year-old wild-card winner James Hudson (TwinturboCH) from Bromley came out on top after a challenging event. Not only did the finalists have to compete against each other, they also had to prove themselves in a series of media, driving, and physical fitness tests at Brands Hatch.
Jann said: “This is amazing. All those hours up in my bedroom with my mum shouting to come down for dinner and me shouting ‘just another five minutes’ seem worth it now! I started playing Gran Turismo when I was just eight as some friends of my parents had the first game. In the end they gave it to me as they got sick of me coming round.”
The next stage of the competition will begin for Jann and James when they join the other regional winners at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where the Academy finals will kick off this year as Lucas Ordonez takes to the track. Congratulations and good luck, guys!
For more pictures, take a look at this photo gallery by our own PrudentBear. Also, don’t miss this comprehensive write-up of the event by Dessy182.
See more articles on GT Academy 2011.
What an awesome car!
Well done lads! Do it for the UK and GTP! ;)
Ps. I love how if someone from GTP wins something, there is the same sense as if a family member won something. Its not the GTP community, its the GTP family! :D
Good luck guys…keep pushing!
They say it won’t be back up until the end of May.
This is not much of a surprise. This is the biggest Gran Turismo community in the world.
The photograph at the top of the article looks ‘shopped.
I think you have a point there. Look at the shadow’s, the car has two shadow’s from the sun and the shadows of the guy’s in the foreground are at a different angle to those at the back. Typical PD, I’m surprised they’re not jaggie :)
Anyone kno when PSN will be back up?? almost been a month already.
That is really cool! Good luck to both of you- I hope you do very well.
Wow this sounds like it was really different from our finals. Good luck guys!
So we got Lewis and Jenson heading off to the finals. Cool….good luck guys!
Any updates on the North American winners?
Headed to Silverstone Shortly. Just getting travel info together now. Unfortunately because of the “reality show” we can’t say anything about what is going on once we get on the plane. And it will stay that way until the show airs.
Good job both of you. Fingers crossed for Jann to win, we need more Welsh race drivers (Sorry James!)
Letting visitors know that some of our members made it to the finals tells them something about the caliber of individuals posting on this forum.
Although, I must add, these guys are 99% guaranteed to cease posting here now anyway…
I’ll be posting here for as long as I can…
Thanks for all the comments guys. I’m really looking forward to this, it’s completely different to anything I’ve ever done in a car and I’m really looking forward to the ‘Race Camp’, it really is an absolute honour to have been selected over some of the other awesome people who’d entered. I never thought I’d make it this far and I will be doing my absolute best to give the GT Academy a UK winner for 2011. :-)
Good work men!!!!
Well done James!! Good to know that one of the drift boys gets through!!
Congratulations Guys!
Long live GTPlanet!
Congrats guys!
That’s awesome! Remember us when you’re famous!
split screen! why they don’t do it on online mode same place!
Online is down and GT5 has no LAN feature.
Congrats guys, hopefully instead of watching Lucas, you are racing him next year!
where does it say they were racing using split screen?
never mind, I see it on the photo
PSN is down….derp
Congratulations!!!
“JANN, COME DOWN HERE NOW YOUNG MAN, YOUR DINNER’S READY!” ;)