GT Academy 2016

It’s been an arduous week, but it all came to a head earlier today at the 2016 GT Academy International Race Camp. With a two drivers from each region remaining, the last event would see all six teams battling it out on track in identically-prepped 370Z race cars. In the end, it would be Johnny Guindi Hamui, a student from Mexico, that would be crowned champion, but not without a fight...

It’s all been building to this. Today will see one person crowned the 2016 GT Academy International champion, beginning their path to becoming a race car driver as part of the Nissan Driver Development Program. Less than three months later, the winner will be making their competitive debut alongside Jann Mardenborough at the 2017 24 Hours of Dubai in January. You can watch it all unfold above, starting at 14:00 Silverstone time (click here to convert)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXqYs0xOV6Q

Over the course of the past few months, the qualifying rounds of GT Academy 2016 have quietly taken place across the globe, as thousands of potential competitors took their best shots using a pre-release version of GT Sport. Six regions were earmarked for International Race Camp (Australia, Indonesia, Mexico, North Africa, Philippines, and Thailand), and after all the dust had settled, six finalists were selected from each to represent their team in Silverstone...

According to an official NISMO Facebook post and AutoDeal, the currently-underway 2016 GT Academy season has found its first dozen Silverstone-bound finalists. This selection of drivers from North Africa and Philippines will compete in the International Race Camp this October at the famed British circuit...

GT Academy 2016 kicked off just over a month ago in various Asian territories. Now, it’s swinging down to the country that will play host to another racing game this year: Australia...

Yes, it’s been officially confirmed on the NISMO Facebook profile page: GT Academy has enrolled into another season of close online competitions that will try to track down talented drivers over the next several months. Although a significant number of countries won’t be supported on the initial run of the 2016 season, players residing in few select ones will get an exclusive chance to test-drive the upcoming GT Sport before everyone else...

Following on from the Nismo mention of the program last week, GT Academy held a press event yesterday in Egypt. Taking place at the Autovrooom track in Cairo (Facebook link if you have a particularly strong interest in the Sunny and/or Juke), few details were released, though GTPlanet member (and 2015 GTA North African champion) sems4arsenal was present. Much as the case was last year, expect some changes to the format…

So far in 2016, GT Academy’s fortunes have not been the brightest. One of the program’s prime proponents, Darren Cox, left parent company Nissan last fall. Shortly after that, the company unceremoniously shuttered it’s front-engine prototype program. More bad news arrived last month, when word got out that successful GTA grad Wolfgang Reip’s contract wasn’t renewed for 2016, which was shortly followed by similar news for multiple previous winners...