Difficult conditions greeted the 18 at Silverstone today (Saturday). But despite some heavy rain during the day, all driving activities went ahead as planned. A sprint competition in the 370Zs was followed by 3 separate activities in the afternoon – a head-to-head, parallel course time-trial in the awesome Nissan GT-R, drifting and car control in the 370Z, and lapping Stowe circuit in the 370Zs with an instructor assessing their progress.

The first day of the GT Academy 2010 Silverstone Finals are complete! The participants saw little bit of everything: fitness tests, written tests, 370Z track time, and a karting endurance race. The France/Portugal team has done the best so far, winning the karting competition, with Spain and Benelux coming in 2nd and 3rd, respectively. Read through the first-hand reports in our new GT Academy 2010 forum, or keep reading to check out the complete gallery from Day 1.

Well, as a last minute replacement and completely-baffled newbie amongst serious publications’ reporters (I count the Daily Star, Ireland Daily Star, Times, Mail, AutoWeek and the BBC, amongst others), I’m here at the GT Academy Boot Camp Media Day…

Thanks to Tomaz and Stefan1904 for digging these up!

The GT Academy 2010 Silverstone Finals are getting an extra boost of star power this year, with long-time F1 team manager Eddie Jordan, Nurburgring super-star Sabine Schmitz, and F1/sports car driver Johnny Herbert joining the team. Of all the new judges, the introduction of Eddie Jordan is perhaps the most significant, given his uncanny ability to choose and develop world champions. Eddie has worked closely with successful drivers such as Ayrton Senna and Damon Hill – he even gave Michael Schumacher his first season in Formula 1. He also worked with Johnny Herbert, who himself enjoyed an 11-year career in F1 and a victory at the Le Mans 24 Hours.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCj0-1VJFjc

Sound is often considered one of Gran Turismo’s weaker points, and we’re all looking for the series to make big strides in this area for its fifth installment. So, as we get the opportunity to hear more and more car’s in-game engine noise, I’ll be putting together some “sound checks” to see how they compare to their real-life counterparts.

Here’s a nice clip to give you an idea of how the combined French/Swiss GT Academy 2010 finals went down. Thanks to gamer28 for sending this in!

Although the Official PlayStation Magazine UK editors were not provided with any new information about GT5 for their latest feature article, they did include an interesting shot of what appears to be Special Stage Route 5. As you may recall, this track was always played at night in previous GT games, but that doesn’t make it look any less cool. Thanks to Captain Roh for sharing these! Evilneal has also shared the full scans here if you’d like to see more.

At the Spanish GT Academy 2010 finals, Lucas Ordoñez, winner of the first GT Academy, got to try his hand at the latest GT5 build running the competition. Here’s his lap around the Nurburgring Nordschleife! Thanks to everyone (including Lucas himself!) for sending this in.

Most of all, the changes make the track look and feel a more realistic, and help take it away from the “better than real-life” criticism that is sometimes directed at GT’s visuals. Check out the side-by-side screen shots below, and watch for the improvements in motion with these video clips. Thanks to CoolColJ and SolidSnakex for putting these together, with video from GT5rs.com!

Remember the Photomode location in Gran Turismo 4, which let you place your car on a boat in front of the famous Rialto Bridge in Venice? Citroen managed to re-create this scene from the game in the real world earlier this week, with the radical Citroen GT concept car designed by Polyphony Digital.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3FNYJ2emp4

Polyphony Digital has updated their sales figures for the Gran Turismo franchise, and the company’s latest title, GT PSP is now on the list. In the three months since its release on October 1st, 2009, it has sold more than 1.8 million copies around the world, making it the sixth-best selling title on Sony’s portable console.

A big thanks to reader “slyght”, who picked up on my request for video from SLS AMG Driving Experience at the Mercedes-Benz Museum. He’s recorded and shared a complete (and mostly clean!) lap of the Nurburgring Nordschleife in the demo, which you can see above. According to his email, the speakers were quite muddled on the TV so we don’t get an accurate impression of the sound, but the demo does include all the basic settings and the option to select professional or standard physics. Thanks once again to slyght and everyone who sent this in!

Remember the PlayStation: The Official Magazine article which announced the Indy Racing League would be coming to GT5? That was wrong, according to a correction listed in their latest issue as found by our own RAZORBACK2015:

The games being used to run the GT Academy national finals are showing off what appears to be our first look at Gran Turismo 5’s extensive online race management features! Click through the screens below to see for yourself, paying special attention to the live weather and time-of-day information prominently displayed near the top of the screens… Thanks to Carbonfibre and Stu for grabbing these pictures!

The first GT Academy 2010 national finals are now complete! TiZzla won in New Zealand, while GTP_DHolland came out on top in Australia. Congratulations to both of you! Participants and attendees are sharing their results, pictures, and impressions from the event here in our forums, so head there to find out how it all went down.

Uh oh. In an interview with Spanish website Canarias Al Dia, CEO of Sony Entertainment Portugal James Armstrong had some disconcerting words for Gran Turismo fans. Via Google translation (user subsonic offers another, human translation):

Now that we’re into February, the second round of GT Academy 2010 is about to begin! Participants down under will kick things off this Wednesday, February 3rd, before the European finals begin this weekend. Our forum moderator Sphinx is compiling a list of each national final, along with its date, venue, and all GTPlanet users who are competing.