Mark Shulzhitskiy

We’ve got quite a few Gran Turismo memorabilia collectors here on GTPlanet. It’s not just scouring eBay for examples of rare game releases, but people who’ll collect absolutely anything with a Gran Turismo logo on it.

NISMO Athlete and 2014 Nissan GT Academy winner Nic Hammann kicks off his first racing season for Nissan in a big way, co-driving with Russian GT Academy champ Mark Shulzhitskiy in an RJN Nissan GT-R GT3 NISMO racer in the first-ever Blancpain Sprint Series event at Moscow Raceway in Russia July 3 to 4.

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.

There’s more great news for GT Academy, as Nissan has announced that another graduate of the program, Mark Shulzhitskiy, will be competing for the overall win at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans behind the wheel of the company’s GT-R LM.

Jann Mardenborough had another successful weekend in the GP3 Series, taking a podium finish at the Hungarian round of the championship.  The young Brit had to work hard in Saturday’s race – he qualified in 13th place after a red flag stopped his fastest run – but he got stuck in and took a very creditable seventh.  This put him on the front row of the grid for race two on Sunday.“I didn’t get as good a start as yesterday and Patrick (Niederhauser) got the jump on me,” explained Jann. “I settled in to third place and managed to hold onto it for the full race, despite the pace not being as good as yesterday.“It’s great to get a podium, and of course last week’s win, which takes me into the summer break with lots of new points.  This also builds my confidence for the next round at Spa so I can’t wait for that to come around now.”

Nissan and GT Academy head back to the fabled Spa-Francorchamps Circuit for their third run at the Blancpain Endurance Series flagship race. The team and drivers’ have experience on their side and are more determined than ever to take the top step on the podium in 2014.

Nissan has shuffled its driver line-ups ahead of this month’s Spa 24 Hours. In the No.35 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 squad – already strengthened by the addition of two-time Super GT GT500 Champion, Masataka Yanagida –  Mark Shulzhitskiy replaces his Russian counterpart Stanislav Aksenov and joins Katsumasa Chiyo and Miguel Faisca.

Race Coverage

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

With both the Pro-Am driver and team championship titles captured in 2013, the Nissan GT Academy Team RJN will mount their defence of the Blancpain Endurance Series at Monza this weekend.

1000km in the Black Forest – that’s all that stands between GT Academy and two GT3 world titles.

Image courtesy of Nissan.

Images courtesy of Nissan & European F3.