After eight long weeks of online time trials held in the GT Academy 2012 mini-game, the top 33 Gran Turismo players in the United States have earned their place in the National Finals.

A series of special new Seasonal Events have just been announced for Gran Turismo 5, which feature the prize cars earned in the GT Academy 2012 mini-game.

The one and only U.S. GT Academy 2012 wildcard event is taking place today, Thursday, July 12, in San Diego, California! The winner, who will be known as “Racer X”, will take home the custom HumanRacing GT Chassis pictured above and join the top 32 U.S. contestants in the finals this weekend for a chance to go to Silverstone.

Japan’s fun little Kei cars are featured in some of Gran Turismo 5’s latest Time & Drift Trial Seasonal Events. Here’s a closer look at the new challenges:

If you’re looking to pick up a new PlayStation 3 in the United States, take a look at GameStop’s latest bundle, which includes a 160GB PS3 Slim, a copy of Gran Turimo 5 XL Edition, The Sly Collection, and a 30 day free trial of PlayStation Plus.

As the Donington 6 Hours approaches this weekend, GT Academy’s inaugural winner Lucas Ordonez has added another 24-hour race to his schedule, as it was announced today that he would join the GT Academy Team RJN squad in the Spa 24 Hours at the end of the month.

The top 32 drivers from Spain met last weekend in Barcelona for their regional GT Academy 2012 finals.

Yesterday, the first prize (a Nissan Leaf) earned by participants in the GT Academy 2012 mini-game was distributed to players in Gran Turismo 5, but it wasn’t yet clear when the others would become available.

Five new “Expert Level” A-Spec races are now available in Gran Turismo 5’s Seasonal Events, featuring Ferrari’s formula cars. Here’s a closer look at the races; keep in mind the final number of credits awarded will be determined by the “Performance Difference Bonus” introduced in GT5 update 2.06.

If you achieved “Gold” times in the GT Academy 2012 mini-game, your efforts are about to be rewarded! Prizes earned in the competition’s time trials are now being distributed to players in Gran Turismo 5.

As announced by Nissan earlier this week GT Academy’s first winner, Lucas Ordoñez, will be reunited with his Le Mans teammates Martin and Alex Brundle. The trio will be driving the Greaves Motorsport Zytek-Nissan for the next round of the FIA World Endurance Championship at Silverstone on 26th August.

Kazunori Yamauchi put to rest any doubts about Polyphony Digital’s long-term plans for GT5, confirming the company is “preparing” new DLC for the game in response to “continued interest” and requests from players.

Kazunori Yamauchi accepted the Honor Award from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences last night, at a special awards gala held in Barcelona.

Kazunori Yamauchi sported a Spanish soccer jersey at one point during a media session in Barcelona today at GameLab 2012, and some of his early interviews with local news outlets are now being published.

Gran Turismo 5’s new Seasonal Events are now live, featuring British cars in Time and Drift trials. Here’s all the details:

Kazunori Yamauchi will be attending GameLab 2012, a video game developer’s conference to be held this weekend in Barcelona, Spain. He will be receiving an Honor Award from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences and will be delivering a speech on the Gran Turismo series and GT Academy.

As was discussed in our forums, registration pages for GT Academy 2012 experienced some technical difficulties last weekend in the final days of the competition. This prevented some participants from completing their registration, which would make them ineligible to move forward in the competition.

Gran Turismo 5’s new downloadable content, which was leaked to include Twin Ring Motegi and the Scion FR-S, has just been officially confirmed via the official PlayStation Blog.

Lots of new information has just been published on the PlayStation Blog which outlines everything that’s about to go down at the U.S. GT Academy 2012 finals, which will be held alongside Comic-Con next month in San Diego, California.

On the day GT Academy 2012 drew to a close the most recent graduate, Jann Mardenborough, showed the participants what it’s all about by taking a maiden win at the British GT series for RJN Motorsport – 365 days after he won Sony’s competition.