In the European rounds of GT Academy last year, Sony hosted several “wildcard events”. These live competitions were hosted at various locations around Europe, and offered players a direct ticket to the final Boot Camp at Silverstone.

The Gran Turismo 5 Asia Online Tournament 2012, an official competition similar to GT Academy hosted by PlayStation Asia, concluded last weekend with an event at the Sepang Circuit.

A Gran Turismo game has been released for every single piece of PlayStation-branded hardware to date, with the notable exception of Sony’s latest hand-held device, the PlayStation Vita. That may be about to change.

Just in time for this weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans – in which two GT Academy champions will be competing – the Circuit de la Sarthe takes the spotlight in the latest GT5 Seasonal Events:

The weekend of 9th/10th June once again provided us with a GT Academy winner double-header, as 2011’s champions Bryan Heitkotter and Jann Mardenborough were in action on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

The final rounds of competition are now available in the GT Academy 2012 mini-game, including the all-important, final time trial challenge, which takes place at Polyphony Digital’s newly-remodeled Twin Ring Motegi circuit!

The final round of GT Academy 2012 – the one that really counts – is about to kick off in just a few days!

A large new set of A-Spec races have now been included in GT5’s Seasonal Events, featuring front-engine, rear-wheel-drive cars with no more than 500PP.

As expected, no new Gran Turismo games were announced at E3 2012, which is being held this week in Los Angeles.

Thanks to an invite to the race day on behalf of Nissan and RJN Motorsport from Glen Gibson at Jardine International, daan and I were able to spend the day in and around the busy garage of the #35 Nissan Nismo GT-R GT3 – trying our hardest to stay out of the way. With the race over, Jann Mardenborough and RJN Motorsport team boss Bob Neville were kind enough to answer a few questions from us and Calvin de Freitas of Jardine:

Following yesterday‘s disappointing qualifying, with traffic issues leading to a 34th place start, the RJN Motorsport team were looking forward to a strong race in the familiar, wet conditions that play to the GT-R’s strengths.

This weekend, Jann Mardenborough returns to Silverstone, the place where his professional racing career started almost exactly one short year ago.

Following the Gran Turismo network maintenance this morning (01.00 – 03.00 GMT/UTC), a small game update has been released.

New Time and Drift Trials have just gone live in Gran Turismo 5’s Seasonal Events, placing the spotlight on French cars. Here’s a closer look at what’s new:

Following up on their “Road to Dubai” series, which covered the development of all four GT Academy graduates as they worked towards this year’s Dubai 24 Hours, the Eurosport television network has now turned their attention to Lucas Ordoñez and Jordan Tresson’s preparations for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Two new rounds of time trials have just been unlocked in the free GT Academy 2012 mini-game, just as participants log nearly 50 million miles driven in the simulator. Here’s a closer look at the new challenges:

Polyphony Digital diverts from their usual pattern with the latest GT5 Seasonal Event, featuring FF cars with no more than 430PP.

A new update for Gran Turismo 5, version 2.06, has just been launched and is now available for download.

After 24 hours of all-weather driving and some unbelievable twists and turns, Team GT Academy safely brought home their #123 Nissan GT-R first in their SP8T class and 30th overall.

As reported yesterday, the 40th Nürburgring 24 Hours gets underway at 16:00 CEST (14:00 GMT) today, with the Team GT Academy car 47th on the 171-car grid – and first in the SP8T class.