Motorsports

European GT Academy winner Jann Mardenborough and his American counterpart, Bryan Heitkotter, are now one race weekend away from gaining their International race licences after a metronomic performance in the Britcar Dunlop Production GTN championship race at the newly-refurbished Snetterton circuit in Norfolk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo8BVV602Oc

After one of the most gruelling ‘Total 24 Hours of Spa’ in many years, the RJN Motorsport Nissan 370Z of Jordan Tresson, Alex Buncombe and Chris Ward crossed the line as the GT4 race winner! This marks the first international victory for a GT Academy winner and indeed for the production class Nissan 370Z.

European GT Academy winner Jann Mardenborough and his American counterpart Bryan Heitkotter faced the toughest challenge so far of their intensive ‘Driver Development Programme’ on Sunday, 24 July at Castle Combe. The pair campaigned their PlayStation® Nissan Team 370Z to a second-in-class finish (17th place overall) in the competitive Britcar Dunlop Production GTN Championship. The strong result in the two-hour endurance race secured each driver two more vital ‘signatures’ required for them to attain the international race licence that will allow them to compete in the Dubai International 24 Hour Race in January 2012.

European GT Academy 2011 winner Jann Mardenborough had another amazing weekend on-track, recording a notable first in class, third overall, finish at the Donington Park round of the Production Touring Car Trophy. More importantly, the weekend’s results have moved Jann another step closer to qualifying for an international race licence, necessary to compete at the next 24 Hours of Dubai. With the 19-year-old from Cardiff collecting valuable signatures at Donington, his licence has now been upgraded from National ‘B’ to National ‘A’, and his motor sport CV now reads; two race meetings, two podiums.

It was another busy weekend for real-world motorsports, and GT Academy stars were right in the action with great results. First up, Lucas Ordoñez and team Signatech Nissan were back on track at the the latest round in the ILMC 2011, the 6 Hours of Imola. The team drove a fast and consistent race, repeating their success at Le Mans with another excellent second-in-class finish, holding their lead in the points for the overall championship.

Kazunori Yamauchi, the father of Gran Turismo, and his teammates Tobias Schulze, Michael Schulze, and Opera Performance founder Yasuyoshi Yamamoto, finished first-in-class in the 2011 Nurburgring 24 Hours! It was a dramatic race for Team Schulze, who were forced to spend a concerning amount of time in the pits addressing mechanical issues with their race-modified Nissan GT-R.

Just as it was with this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, Gran Turismo fans have another driver to cheer for in the Nurburgring’s 24-hour race: Kazunori Yamauchi. Here’s all the links you need to follow along:

Kazunori Yamauchi has quietly returned to real-world racing. He was spotted at the four-hour ADAC Reinoldus-Langstrekenrennen Nurburgring VLN race in a Nissan GT-R, obviously inspired from the GT500 “Stealth” GT-R from Gran Turismo 5. His teammates include Tobias and Michael Schulze of Autohaus Schulze and Yasuyoshi Yamamoto, founder of Japanese tuning shop Opera Performance.

As you’ve probably heard by now, GT Academy winner Lucas Ordoñez and his teammates Franck Mailleux and Soheil Ayari drove an incredible race at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. Despite two unfortunate tire punctures, they pushed their Signatech Oreca Nissan back up through the field of LMP2 cars – all the way to a second place class finish in the world’s toughest endurance race.

Whether you’re a die-hard GT fan, a Forza fan-boy, or an iRacing snob, anyone who calls themself a “sim-racer” or “gamer” should take special interest in this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. Starting from class pole, GT Academy winner Lucas Ordoñez has an incredible opportunity to publicize and legitimize our niche hobby on the world stage. Here’s a batch of links and resources to help you follow along throughout the weekend. Good luck to Lucas and the Signatech team!

GT Academy winner Lucas Ordoñez and his Signatech Racing team are off to an incredible start at Le Mans, taking class pole in the LMP2 category with a 3:41.458 around La Sarthe. That’s 1.1 seconds ahead of the next LMP2 challenger, and nearly half a second faster than Oak Racing’s LMP1 car! For more, see the full qualifying results along with this overview of the day’s events.

GT Academy winner Lucas Ordoñez and his Signatech Nissan team competed in the Spa Francorchamps 1000km on Saturday, in front of a massive crowd of over 35,000 people. Starting from third-place qualifying position in the LMP2 class, Signatech took the class lead in the first corner of the race. All went well until contact with a GT car required work in the pits that put them 4 laps down, then a steering problem later in the race required even more unexpected repairs.

As you may recall, GT series creator Kazunori Yamauchi joined the Team World Car Awards for the 24-Hour Nurburgring race just a few weeks ago. Despite some mechanical troubles, they finished fourth in their class, with Yamauchi himself setting the team’s second-fastest lap at 9:48. Check out on-board video of one of his laps below, featuring his signature smooth-and-steady driving style. Congratulations to the whole team, and thanks to all who sent this in!

As many of you know, the father of the Gran Turismo series is competing in the Nurburgring 24 Hours race, going on right now. He’s driving the #72 Lexus IS-F with teammates Hideshi Matsuda, Owen Mildenhall, and Peter Lyon (learn more about them here). You can monitor their progress live on the race’s official website – they’ve even got streaming video coverage available right here. For audio coverage in English, tune in to Radio Le Mans (thanks for the shout-out on the air , guys!). I’ll update this post when the results are in. Good luck, Yamauchi-san!

Kazunori Yamauchi added yet another event to his motorsport resume earlier this month when he competed in the 25 Hours of Thunder Hill in California. Yamauchi drove an N-spec Honda Civic for Spoon Sports along with several experienced teammates including Tatsuru Ichishima, Naoki Hattori, and journalist Sam Mitani. The all managed a clean drive, but their performance was unfortunately hampered by penalties for improper fueling and (interestingly) a too-loud exhaust. Nevertheless, it was a great experience for Yamauchi-san who is learning much from all this track time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ateTG5bdoEc

Kazunori Yamauchi’s participation in the VLN’s BFGoodwrich Langstreckenmeisterschaft event on the Nurburgring Nordschleife last month is carefully documented in the latest issue of Auto Express. Editor Owen Mildenhall, who shared the car with Yamauchi and Peter Lyon during the 4 hour endurance race, has posted about the experience on the magazine’s website. Unfortunately, the differential on the team’s Lexus IS-F wasn’t up to the task, forcing Yamauchi to retire the car after just 40 minutes behind the wheel.

The Gran Turismo brand once again made a strong showing last weekend at the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans.  Trackside banners could be seen all around Circuit de La Sarthe – most notably at the chicanes down the  Mulsanne straight.  Sony also continued their strong support of the Pescarolo Sport racing team’s Peugeot 908 LMP car, in the quickly-becoming-classic light blue/green/white livery that you probably remember from GT4.  Polyphony Digital’s Citroen GT also made the rounds this year, (supposedly) doing a honorary lap around the circuit (still waiting on pictures of that) and appearing in a local driver’s parade.