2016 will see Nissans of all manner of shapes and sizes take to the track all over the globe once more, as the manufacturer, aided by the NISMO Athletes, aim to top a hugely successful 2015 with 34 drivers across 14 series.
Every year, Polyphony Digital hosts an annual Christmas party at their offices in Japan with a wide variety of motorsports and gaming industry celebrities in attendance. This year, however, they spiced things up a bit, using the opportunity to show off what appears to be new concept artwork likely related to next year’s Gran Turismo Sport.
Nissan’s much-anticipated Le Mans challenger, the Nissan GT-R LM NISMO, made its race debut at the Le Mans 24 Hours this weekend. Such is the scale of the challenge to enter the top endurance class, Nissan set a target of getting one of it’s three cars to the finish of the 24-hour race.
Nissan is doing pretty much everything outside-the-box for their assault on the 24 Hours of Le Mans this year: they’re competing with a front-engined, front-wheel-drive LMP1 car (with wider tires in the front than the back, no less) that’s going to be piloted by two drivers who began their racing careers in Gran Turismo, Jann Mardenborough and Lucas Ordoñez.
GP3 race winner Jann Mardenborough was revealed as one of the drivers of Nissan’s LM P1 racing car at the Chicago Motor Show today. At the same time in Yokohama, Japan, it was announced that fellow GT Academy winner, Lucas Ordoñez, had also been selected to race the Nissan GT-R LM NISMO, along with NISMO racer Michael Krumm.
GT Academy champion Lucas Ordoñez scored his first Super GT victory in the series’ latest round at Thailand’s Chang International Circuit last weekend. Lucas and his teammate Kazuki Hoshino held off highly experienced driver Jorg Müller in the Studie BMW Z4 GT3 car.
The EuroSport TV network has begun airing GT Academy: Masterclass to document the wild success of champions Lucas Ordoñez and Jann Mardenborough, while providing a glimpse into what the European and International competitors faced during Race Camp this year.
When Kazunori Yamauchi accepted the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge from Forza Motorsport’s Dan Greenawalt last week, he took the opportunity to pass along the challenge to two more people: Lucas Ordoñez, original GT Academy champion, and Ken Kutaragi, the “Father of PlayStation” who was instrumental in the design and development of the original console.
As you’ve probably heard by now, the original GT Academy star will be taking center stage at one of the world’s most prominent racing events – the 24 Hours of Le Mans – and he’ll be doing it in grand style, behind the wheel of the radical Nissan ZEOD hybrid-electric race car.