GT Academy

In an awesome demonstration of ‘virtual’ driving skills in the real world, GT Academy winner Lucas Ordóñez successfully competed in the 24 Hours of Dubai!  With highly experienced teammates like former F1 driver Johnny Herbert, Alex Buncombe, and Rob Barff, the pressure was on Lucas to keep the lap times low and the car on the track.  He managed to do just that, and despite a mechanical setback, helped the Nissan team finish 9th in their class 451 laps and over a distance of 2431km.

Djie of granturismo5.nl managed to dig up a Dutch press release by SCEE which explains the GT Academy Finals competition in great detail, describing the drama of the final day of competition which ultimately left Lucas Ordoñez and Lars Schlommer in the winner’s circle.  New photos from the event were also released today, showing the Gran Turismo livery on a pair of new Nissan GT-Rs and Silverstone’s own open-wheeled formula car.  The competitors themselves have joined the discussion in our forums, and I would like to personally welcome each of them to our growing community! Now, for the rest of us, here’s an interesting read of how it all went down in the last day of competition:

The GT Academy competition was officially kicked off today!  To sign up and participate, visit gtacademy.eu and enter your PSN ID.  Once registered, simply view the online events in Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, and post a fast lap around the Eiger Nordwand in a Nissan Fairlady Z Version S.  Be sure to register in the competition with your Official GTPlanet PSN ID to show the world just how fast GTPlanet drivers are!  The full press release is posted after the jump…

New information has emerged about the GT Academy, the latest promotion by Sony to give Europe’s fastest GT drivers a shot at a real racing career. The first press release was vague on details, but today we have everything you need to know. The entire competition is broken down into three stages:

Coming out of nowhere, Sony has announced “GT Academy” – a program for Europeans that translates their on-track performance in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue into a real racing career. Starting at the end of May, a series of online races will be held to determine the two most competitive players. The two winners will receive four months of real-world racing school instruction, and a racing seat with the Nissan team in the 24 Hours of Dubai later this year! This is a very surprising and unusual program for Nissan and Sony to embark upon, and there are still many details which are unclear. For example, how will the online competitions be regulated to prevent unfair driving and bumping? How will the races themselves be determine, tracked, and monitored with the current online system? Stay tuned for more details as we get them – meanwhile, hit the track and sharpen your driving skills! See the full press release after the jump…