European winner of the 2011 GT Academy, Jann Mardenborough, and his American counterpart Bryan Heitkotter, completed the final race of their intensive five-month ‘Driver Development Programme’ on Saturday 19 November. Competing in the Britcar MSA British Endurance Championship race at Brands Hatch, the pair recorded a notable first-in-class finish (fifth place overall) in their RJN Motorsport run Nissan 370Z GT4 race car. The result moves them ever closer to achieving their main goal of competing in the Dubai International 24 Hour race in January, 2012.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6pf6ueK-Is

Polyphony Digital has announced a new special Time Trial Challenge Seasonal Event, which will go live on Monday, November 21 at 12:01 PST.

There’s some more interesting themes this week (as well as an extension on one from last week), so I’ll cut right to the chase!

A new batch of Time and Drift trial events are now live in Gran Turismo 5, featuring the following cars and tracks:

GT Academy winner Lucas Ordoñez and his Signatech Nissan team may have clinched the ILMC LMP2 championship last month at Road Atlanta, but a class victory has remained just out of reach the entire season – until now!

IGN has published their most recent interview with Kazunori Yamauchi, where he provides fairly detailed responses to some familiar questions. Notably, he offers a rough timeline of how often we can expect new content to be introduced in Gran Turismo 5:

After a short hiatus, we’re back on the front page, just in time for the big five-oh! Now that every region has access to the DLC, we’re all enjoying the intensity of Spa, and the incredible lighting Kart Space provides for photo shoots. Not to mention all those new paints! Why not join us and take part in some of the competitions this week? You can’t win if you don’t get involved…

A new Seasonal Event has just gone live in Gran Turismo 5, featuring classic (pre-1979) Japanese cars in the following events. Tuning is allowed up to 450PP with unlimited tire selection.

At the 2011 SEMA Show last week, I had the very special opportunity to – for the first time – personally interview the master himself: Kazunori Yamauchi. We had a great chat, and I am happy to report that Kazunori seemed happy, relaxed, and in good spirits.

The 2011 Gran Turismo Awards were held last Thursday night in Las Vegas, and Kazunori Yamauchi himself selected this year’s “Best in Show” winner: a 1971 Chevrolet Camaro, customized and tuned by Mary Pozzi of Salinas, California.

Polyphony Digital has just released a new set of Time & Drift Trials and a refreshed Online Car Dealership. Here’s a look at all the details:

The 2011 SEMA show kicks off this week in Las Vegas, and the Gran Turismo Awards – where a custom car from the show is awarded immortality in a Gran Turismo game – are almost here!

One of the obvious stars of Gran Turismo 5’s first DLC car pack is the new-and-improved Red Bull X2011, but until now, it wasn’t clear exactly what changes have been made to the car’s design.

The latest version of Gran Turismo 5, version 2.01, has just been released. Weighing in at 112MB, it provides a number of bug fixes, patches, and tweaks. Here’s a complete change log:

Just as the North American gamers are getting to grips with yesterday’s DLC addition, Kazunori Yamauchi has announced a game update. The update will address issues gamers have brought up with the Spec 2.0 version of the game released earlier this month:

Though there’s still been no explanation from Sony regarding the delay of Gran Turismo 5’s first batch of DLC in North America, its release date of October 25th is finally here. The exact time the new content will become available in the PlayStation Store is not known, though it will likely be in the afternoon, Eastern Time (Edit: Confirmed as 14.00PST through Twitter).

Gran Turismo 5 took top honors in the Racing category at the 2011 Golden Joystick Awards, one of the gaming industry’s highest-profile awards ceremonies (congratulations, Polyphony Digital!).

It’s true, it’s true… the Tournament has come and gone. In its place, our community is taking advantage of the biggest overhaul to GT5 since its release, with the Spec 2.0 update adding some features, and the DLC packages this week (and next for North Americans) bringing even more content. What better way to show off your new rides?

New Time Trial and Drift Trial events are now available in Gran Turismo 5: