Motorsports

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.

The following was written by Nicolas Hammann, 2014 United States GT Academy Champion, as he offers an inside look at the Nissan Driver Development Program which he joined after winning this past season of the competition. More to come soon as his racing season gets underway!

All Nissan factory-backed cars racing this weekend will be carrying a small black ribbon logo to mark the death of the spectator. Meanwhile the unfortunate driver, Jann Mardenborough – who was also taken to hospital as a result of the incident – has resumed driving duties in the GP3 test this weekend, topping the timesheets amongst his Carlin team-mates in 7th overall.

This guest contribution is by Nick McMillen, 2013 United States GT Academy Champion. This is the account of his journey as one of the newest Nismo Athletes. Stay tuned for future articles from our racing driver contributor coming soon as he experiences and progresses through his professional career.

During today’s ‘VLN 1’ race at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, a serious incident occurred involving the No.23 Nissan.

In just a few weeks’ time two more winners of the Nissan PlayStation GT Academy will start their dream job, racing a Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 in the Blancpain Endurance Series.

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.

Nissan Motorsports announced today a partnership with Always Evolving (AE) to campaign two GT Academy-NISMO Nissan GT-R GT3 racing cars for the 2015 Pirelli World Challenge season.

This guest contribution is by Nick McMillen, 2013 United States GT Academy Champion. This is the account of his journey as one of the newest Nismo Athletes. Stay tuned for future articles from our racing driver contributor coming soon as he experiences and progresses through his professional career.

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.

Bathurst bit back almost immediately though, as Chiyo scraped the wall at the Cutting and had to limp back to the pits with some unsightly rear end damage. The team is confident of getting it all straightened up for the start of the race, which will be taken by Wolfgang Reip.

2013 GT Academy Germany champion Florian Strauss will replace Alex Buncombe in the NISMO Athlete Global Team at the 2015 Bathurst 12 Hour. Buncombe had been confirmed to drive the #35 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3, alongside fellow NISMO Athletes Katsumasa Chiyo and Wolfgang Reip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gx_E23VpQQ

Nissan has confirmed that 2012 GT Academy European champion Wolfgang Reip will be driving the factory team’s #35 GT-R NISMO GT3 in the upcoming Bathurst 12 Hours, to be held February 6th-8th. He’ll be joined by fellow NISMO athletes Alex Buncombe and Katsumasa Chiyo.

Two American GT Academy champions are teaming up this week to compete at the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge’s opening race at Daytona. 2011 champion Bryan Heitkotter and 2013 champion Nick McMillen will be driving the #41 Nissan 370Z for the Doran Racing team.

Although European GT Academy champions have typically had the most opportunities at the highest levels of sports car racing over the past few years, Nissan hasn’t forgotten about their ever-increasing stable of champions in the United States.