In the busiest weekend of GT Academy racing to date, every single one of the “Nismo Athletes” was involved in a top tier international race series – including Kazunori Yamauchi himself.
Yamauchi got procedings underway with a seat in the #28 Schulze Motorsport Nissan GT-R – alongside Michael and Tobias Schulze – for the 38th running of the DMV 4 Hour race at the Nürburgring. With over 200 cars entered – 20 in the Schulze’s SP9 class – in was a very busy race and the team completed 26 laps in 4hr 6 minutes to finish 10th in class.
Back in the UK, 2011 winner Jann Mardenborough had a second opportunity to show his open wheel credentials, but on home soil as the European F3 season reached Silverstone. The two Saturday races were inauspicious, with Jann qualifying 19th for race 1 to finish 16th, but crashing out of race 2 following a start incident with Antonio Giovinazzi and Félix Serrallés.
However, Sunday morning’s third race saw Jann qualify to his best start of the season so far in 12th and bring the car home 8th – ahead of two of his Carlin teammates – for his first points of the season, being denied 7th on the final lap. Mardenborough scored 4pt for his 8th place finish and now finds himself in 14th overall in the 30 car championship heading into the Hockenheim round in May.
Fresh off the back of a solid start to the FIA GT3 Championship season in Nogaro two weeks since, the RJN-prepped Nismo GT-Rs were shipped across the alps to Italy for round 1 of the Blancpain Endurance Series. Sunday’s 3hr race sees a colossal grid of sixty GT3 class cars take to the classic Monza circuit.
Ahead of Sunday’s qualifying the Pro-Am #35 car of Alex Buncombe, Lucas Ordoñez and Steve “Dan Mitchell” Doherty – making his season debut – put themselves 2nd fastest overall in the prequalifying session, just 0.2s behind the lead car and ahead of just about the entire Pro car field. This intent was backed up with an identical result in Q1 and 4th overall in Q3, while Amateur driver Doherty also put himself beyond Pro cars in his first GT3 racing experience – the team qualifying 6th overall.
The #32 car of Wolfgang Riep, Peter Pyzera and Mark Shulzhitskiy was around 2s off the pace in pre-qualifying, but managed 2nd and 3rd in class in Q1 and Q2 sessions, with Wolfgang setting the best laptimes in Q3 but finding himself a little down the order amongst the seasoned pros.
Without any major reliability problems, the two cars finished the three hour race 6th and 8th in class, with the #35 car – at one time the leader of the entire race during the first stints – leading the #32 home. The next Blancpain action for the teams is on RJN’s home soil at Silverstone in June.
Images courtesy of Nissan & European F3.
See more articles on Alex Buncombe, Blancpain Endurance Series, European Formula 3, Jann Mardenborough, Kazunori Yamauchi, Lucas Ordonez, Mark Shulzhitskiy, Peter Pyzera, and Wolfgang Reip.
I may be in the minority here, but the positive evolution of the GTAcademy grads makes me look forward to the potential of having and Participating in another community GTAcademy for GT5. Maybe we’ll get a Juke Academy car to flog around.
Like Tigdney said already, amazing to watch 60 awsome GT’s going to first chicane in Monza. Very exciting race with door to door battle’s allover the track :tup: Can hardly wait watching them comming up Radillion in the 24hrs :)
Will see some of the cars next week in the FIA GT sprintraces next weekend in Zolder.
They will be only running 5 races a 6th to be announced in the Blancpain Endurance Series, strange.
Absolutely fantastic – glad to see the FIA kicking in.
Man this makes me go play GT5… Nahh, Blancpain mod for RFACTOR!! Hell Yeah!!!!
Well written article @famine
In the 4hr VLN race at the Ring, Kazunori Yamauchi was also listed as a driver for one of the Lexus IS-F, the #135 in class SP8 along with german Uwe Kleen and Klaus Voelker! I was there as a spectator at the Bruennchen site, of course I wasn´t able to see who is in the cars, so I really wonder if he actually drove both cars at the same race…
http://www.gtplanet.net/kazunori-yamauchi-goes-racing-on-ring/
actually
http://www.gtplanet.net/ordonez-tresson-at-silverstones-wec-round-yamauchi-wins-nurburgring-vln-race/
What do you mean?
Dat GT-R and Youtube livery. O_O
Dat?
Oh sorry meant to say that. :p lol
Yeah, Kaz loves the GT-R so much, perhaps he should give us that GT-R with the Youtube livery lol.
You should have seen the start of that race, 60 cars approaching the sharp chicane at Monza, was Nuts :D. One of the best races I have seen in a long while, was an awesome start by Alex in the Youtube GTR!
I’d like the see that Blancpain YouTube Nismo.TV GT-R in the next GT edition. With my luck it’ll come as a limited edition special, which I’ll procrastinate myself out of luck ;(
GR Nismo Athletes.
For the Blancpain Endurance Monza race :
The YouTube-liveried No.35 GT-R came home sixth in the Pro-Am class at Monza after dramatically taking the lead in the early stages of the race. The No.32 GT-R, raced by three GT Academy winners who only graduated last August, finished eighth in class.
Im hoping as the season picks up steam the GT3 GT-Rs leave the engineering gremlins behind, especially when it could rain. Good Job as usual GTAcademy grads.
Yawn…….
I know, your post is that tiresome…..
Get burned!!!!
Too many bloody aces to watch during the week. I NEED A BLASTED DVRRRR!!!!!
Well done driver keep up the good work, the GT3 class is a blast to watch.
At least he’s got a new car to drive ?? What about giving us 7 million owners of GT5 some new cars,
Kaz isn’t the only one that works for PD. People need to get that through their heads.
People need to mostly get over themselves that GT5 DLC is OVER.
@Toko
Only time will tell, if so it is so. IT BETTER NOT BE BLASTED I WANT SOME MORE CARS AND TRACKS MAN!!
Look at the front of that GTR …all messy with dead bugs and goodness only knows what else. I bet the Windscreen is similarly afflicted. I am hoping that in a future edition GT, when you participate in any endurance race, that the cars get messy and “gritty” too. I did the 4 hour Ring endure on Saturday and remember hoping that my windscreen had a few bugs on that I could get rid off with the wipers. Its a small thing I know and there are MANY more priorities that they need to be concerned with but I really am hoping this makes at least item number 1500 on their list.
I agree, more evidence of muck and bugs which stay on the car so the wipers make a difference. Be nice if the muck stays on too, so you have to wash your car or leave it dirty.
Nicely done.
At least we might be offered another paint scheme. We’ve always been given the car Kaz drives.
Im loving the livery of that #35 GTR!
Thanks for the info!
Hmm, wouldn’t that be awesome, 60 cars racing on a virtual circuit?