Motorsports

Kazunori Yamauchi will be returning to the gruelling Green Hell this year. Polyphony’s man in charge took 2015 off, after an accident during the qualifying session the year before. In a surprising turn, however, Yamauchi will be slotting in behind the wheel of a Bavarian motor for the ADAC qualifier this weekend.

Of course Polyphony has been programming AI for the Gran Turismo series for almost 20 years and in recent iterations of the game you’ve been able to train and micromanage your own versions of the AI in a game mode called “B-Spec” – so players have taken to calling the driver “B-Spec Bob”. With two decades of experience creating AI that can deal with high-speed racing, Polyphony should be confident.

You’d be excused for calling the beginning of 2016 a rough start for most of the previous GT Academy grads. While veterans like Ordonez, Mardenborough, and Heitkotter all had their positions announced by Nissan in February – joined by recent grads like Matt Simmons – an alarming number of winners were notable for their absence. Gaetan Paletou and Wolfgang Reip were just two of the drivers that found themselves without a seat in the new year.

It wasn’t all sunshine and smiles in Florida this past weekend. After a solid season opener the week before in Texas, Heitkotter and teammate JD Davison faced stiff competition on the tight street circuit of a cloudy St. Petersburg. While outright victory would evade the GT-R’s in Florida, the two drivers made points progress nonetheless, including a podium finish.

The Le Castellet circuit in France, better known to the motorsport community as the Circuit Paul Ricard, was this week’s home to the Blancpain GT Series as the official pre-season testing began for the upcoming season.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycaV3-_uha0

The Pirelli World Challenge season got underway this past weekend, bringing more success for GT Academy grads and Nissan’s 2016 motorsports teams. Bryan Heitkotter was bumped up to the top GT class in the PWC mid-season last year, where he ended the series in a respectable 10th place. For 2016 however, Bryan started on an equal footing against other professional drivers, and wasted no time establishing himself as a contender with an award-winning drive in Texas on Saturday.

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.

“You’re going to rally school!”

With rumours swirling earlier this month, Wolfgang Reip has now confirmed the bad news (care of Daily Sports Car): Nissan has chosen not to renew his contract for the 2016 season.

Australia’s prime racing circuit hosted an absolute thriller over the weekend which saw Tekno McLaren take the title, despite harsh competition from defending champions Nissan and a few issues faced along the half-day event. The driver team of Shane Van Gisbergen, Alvaro Parente and Jonathon Webb faced a car break-down and drive-through penalty, which threatened their chances of domination by pushing them down to 3rd in the closing stages of the endurance race.

A fight to the finish was what fans wanted last weekend, and receive one they certainly did. As the season opener, the Daytona 24 served as an excellent sign of things to come, a day-long sprint with record-setting wins in the Prototype and GTLM categories.

This weekend sees the international motorsport season kick off with a bang, as the 54th running of the Rolex 24 at Daytona starts the ball rolling for another bumper year of global sportscar action. The twice round the clock Florida classic will be the first event for IMSA’s newly renamed WeatherTech Sportscar Championship, as a grand total of 54 cars, many of which are brand new additions to the field, take the green flag on Saturday afternoon.

Back in the summer, a 26-year old postal delivery driver took part in a little competition you may have heard of: GT Academy. This van-driving man – by the name of Matt Simmons – would go on to win the International Region GT Academy competition. In the article linked, we mentioned Simmons was entering the usual post-Academy 3-month training program that Nissan puts each winner through, in preparation for the Dubai 24 Hours race in January. That’s not the case anymore, however.

This guest contribution is by Bryan Heitkotter, 2011 United States GT Academy Champion. As the first US GTA graduate, Bryan has driven a wide variety of vehicles over the years, from the wild Juke-R to the GT3 GT-R. He’s also shared the wheel with fellow GT Academy pupil Nick McMillen. Here, Bryan recounts his experience at the 2015 NISMO Festival.

The Nissan-powered Greaves Motorsport team took the European Le Mans Series LM P2 title today, after finishing in second place in a nail-biting season finale at Estoril in Portugal.