GT Academy 2010

After one of the most gruelling ‘Total 24 Hours of Spa’ in many years, the RJN Motorsport Nissan 370Z of Jordan Tresson, Alex Buncombe and Chris Ward crossed the line as the GT4 race winner! This marks the first international victory for a GT Academy winner and indeed for the production class Nissan 370Z.

The GT Academy finalists took their first step on the road to the grand prize, when Italy’s Luca Lorenzini and Frenchman Jordan Tresson took to the track at the Snetterton circuit in a pair of identical Nissan 370Z cars. The pair recorded 10th and 11th place finishes respectively in the 750 All Comers event but, more importantly, secured valuable signatures that will assist them in their bid to qualify for an ‘International C’ race licence.

With the famous Silverstone Circuit bathed in sunshine today (Monday), the GT Academy 2010 action hotted up once more. The final four Gran Turismo® racers in the competition had an incredible day of on-and-off track action. Jordan Tresson from France, Marco Calvo from Spain, Luca Lorenzini from Italy and Daniel Collins from Ireland were pitted directly against each other in a series of challenges designed to unearth the racing driver with the most potential to succeed in the European GT4 Cup race series.

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…

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!

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.

The free Gran Turismo 5 demo used to host the first round of competition in GT Academy 2010 has been downloaded over 1 million times in Europe within the first three weeks of its release (that’s one download approximately every 2 seconds), according to SCEE. Here’s what Yamauchi had to say about the milestone: