GT Academy Racing Updates & News

  • Thread starter CodeRedR51
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That's a lot of hand action. (Those with dirty minds keep to themselves please :P)
 
Bummer about Sean, I was really hoping JDX would throw him a bone, and he could stay stateside in their GTC car(The Chrome Gold one), which he got to drive at Petit Le Mans. Perhaps Germany will be a better place to hone his skills, allowing him to be a hotter commodity as a driver, and getting him to his goal faster.
 
I don't know, over there he'll get in contact with many more people that can actually give him a ride, not just a test from some team that's just starting out here. GT racing in the US sucks.

Over there, if he does well, he has an extremely good chance of doing Le Mans, which is the ultimate goal. Rather than hoping to get picked out from the influx of young drivers trying to do the same thing from here in the US but aren't lucky enough to get a shot in the feeder series in Europe. 'cause let's face it, feeder series in the U.S are becoming more like clubs than steps on any ladder.

Once he's done Le Mans and hopefully gotten himself a European championship he can really go anywhere.
 
^ That would be awesome. He and Patrick Long are already good buddies so anything is possible.
 
The first thing I said when I read this was: "Seriously!?"

https://www.facebook.com/notes/gt-academy/nissans-gt-academy-winners-are-too-fast/10151783796773504

British GT Championship entry refused on grounds of anticipated pace of new recruits

Nissan’s GT Academy Team RJN entry for a two-car assault on the British GT Championship has been refused as the drivers are “too fast” for the national Pro-Am category.

In 2012 GT Academy winner Jann Mardenborough entered the British GT Championship alongside Alex Buncombe in the brand new Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3. Alex was the professional and Jann was the amateur as at that point his racing experience was incredibly limited. They pushed hard and by the close of the season the duo were in with a shot of winning the championship outright.

In 2013 the threat of the talent of the newest GT Academy winners is far too real.

“I have a lot of admiration for GT Academy,” said British GT Championship Manager Benjamin Franassovici. “It has shown itself to be a great way to source raw talent and turn that into real racing talent as we saw in British GT last year with Jann Mardenborough. However Nissan’s ability to find such amazing raw talent means that we cannot accept their full season entry for British GT in 2013. Their new recruits have very little racing experience so they have to be on the lowest performance grade. Their talent, going on Jann’s speed last year, doesn’t reflect this lack of experience so it is not fair to put them up against our Pro/Gentleman grid, the basis of British GT3. Hats off to Nissan though and I should point out that there are no closed doors here.”

During the 2012 British GT season Jann Mardenborough was deemed ‘too fast’ for his performance grading but as he didn’t meet any of the higher criteria the organisers had no choice other than to apply a time penalty to allow the others to catch up. In his first full season as a racing driver Jann’s talent was recognised by the British Racing Driver’s Club who awarded him Rising Star status and he was also awarded a place on the prestigious MSA Academy, run by the governing body of motorsport in the UK.

In 2013 four new winners of GT Academy are ready to race after going through the intensive GT Academy Driver Development Programme. The four drivers are Wolfgang Reip (2012 European winner from Belgium), Mark Shulzhitskiy (2012 Russian winner), Peter Pyzera (2012 German winner) and Steve Doherty (2012 US winner).

“We don’t know yet if the new guys will be as fast as Jann but British GT have decided not to take the risk,” said Nissan’s Global Motorsports Director Darren Cox. “It’s disappointing that we can’t put any of our new winners into the British GT Championship as it was a great learning experience for Jann. It’s also very flattering at the same time though. Being told you are too fast isn’t something that happens very often in any competitive sport. We’re working hard now to make sure our new graduates have a great race programme this year.”
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I don't get the issue. British GT is a PRO-AM series. How is it fair to the others for RJN (the team that Jann drove in) to have what is essentially a Pro-Pro car? By the end of the year Jann was way quicker than any of the other amateur drivers. Explain how that's a fair situation for the other teams with Pro-Am?

The management behind British GT is clearly looking at the bigger picture here, and rightfully so. They haven't lost any entrants by this decision, if anything the series will be even stronger this year than in 2012 with more competition for race wins.
 
GT Academy graduates, despite their short amount of training after their win, are still considered amateur drivers in my eyes. In fact, I would be pretty certain that most of the amateur drivers in that series are old enough to have WAY more track experience than any of the graduates when they first step foot into the series.
 
Is it just me, or is the number of Graduates (Not to mention finalists who pick up a drive) getting quite large? I think it's starting to look like a valid alternative to having money and running F3 or any other ladder series.
 
But they've been through a training camp to become a racing driver? That makes them far more qualified to race in a professional environment than any amateur driver.

Jann was competing for wins on numerous occasions in his first full year of racing, he hadn't even driven most of the tracks before. If you know the technique, which GT Academy winners do, then learning a track is relatively easy element of the weekend. There's nothing amateur-ish about any of the graduates from GTA. They may lack some experience but I don't believe this doesn't make them a professional driver.

I think to put things into perspective you have to look at some of the amateur racers in this particular series and see what Jann was up against.
 
R1600Turbo
GT Academy graduates, despite their short amount of training after their win, are still considered amateur drivers in my eyes. In fact, I would be pretty certain that most of the amateur drivers in that series are old enough to have WAY more track experience than any of the graduates when they first step foot into the series.
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If they are getting paid to drive, then they are professionals. I don't know the specifics of the arrangements, so can't comment further than that.
I do agree that most of the true amateurs would have way more track experience, since having a racing license prevented entry in the GT Academy to start with.


I think the best way to classify the GTA guys is to call them inexperienced professionals, which seems to place them (inconveniently) right between the classifications for the British series.
 
Mac K
Sean going to Germany?
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Wasn't he a candidate for a racing scholarship? Don't remember the name but the guys at Radio LM mentioned that a couple of months ago arround mid 2012 season...

hawkeye122
Bummer about Sean, I was really hoping JDX would throw him a bone, and he could stay stateside in their GTC car(The Chrome Gold one), which he got to drive at Petit Le Mans. Perhaps Germany will be a better place to hone his skills, allowing him to be a hotter commodity as a driver, and getting him to his goal faster.
Click to expand...
JDX is a pay to drive team, there was no real future for him there. Like Wardez said, his odds of getting the right attention are much much better over there!
R1600Turbo
GT Academy graduates, despite their short amount of training after their win, are still considered amateur drivers in my eyes. In fact, I would be pretty certain that most of the amateur drivers in that series are old enough to have WAY more track experience than any of the graduates when they first step foot into the series.
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In terms of experience they might be lacking a bit but not in speed! Trust me once you've done what they've done the improvement over what we saw on the show is immense!
They are in fact Professional drivers and pairing them up with other Pros in what pretty much is Club racing gives RJN a huge and unfair advantage over the other teams plain and simple!
hawkeye122
Is it just me, or is the number of Graduates (Not to mention finalists who pick up a drive) getting quite large? I think it's starting to look like a valid alternative to having money and running F3 or any other ladder series.
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I doubt Nissan is going to keep anyone other than Lucas if anyone on their payroll, the old guys seem to be pretty much on their own once their year is up! To be honest I get the feeling that Nissan is dropping the whole program... Afterall this is just another marketing exercise for them.
 
I'm not saying becoming a Nissan driver is easier, I'm saying becoming a racing driver is easier. Well not easier, but at least this is a valid option, so it seems.
 
Jav
To be honest I get the feeling that Nissan is dropping the whole [GT Academy] program...
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If the program helps Nissan and PlayStation keep on selling Nissans and PlayStations I doubt they'll drop it any time soon (especially when there's a next generation Sony console coming out in the near future).
 
So round 4 race weekend in TRS had a bit of everything for Jann, an eventful first race, getting crashed into early on on and then making a very good comeback, a normal second race, and third race being caught out by driver in front of him braking earlier than anticipated.

The final round which took place this week started of eventful with Jann doing a 360 and then regaining control but shortly afterwards going backwards into a tyre wall.

Second race Jann managed to make 6th place officially after starting from last and final race he finished in 7th place. Quite eventful the actual race due to quite a few yellows and didn't help Jann, Pipo benefited the most out of the front runners by finishing fourth, it could have been Jann if he was more fortunate on the restarts but still a good result as pace was close to leaders. All in all a very successful TRS for Jann especially considering he is rookie in his first time racing single seaters and also was team leader so no strong team mate to learn from. Hope he gets a Formula 3 seat.

I found interesting following this that Felix Serralles struggled a bit half way in the series, I wonder why that was and given Jann outperformed him in terms of speed since then, I don't see why Jann can't get a good seat in single seaters if budget and Nissan allows it.

Well done to Nick for winning championship again and keeping it still an exclusive New Zealand club. Impressive achievement by the local drivers.

Also well done to Jann on winning the top rookie title 👍.
 
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Louie_Schumii
^ Yeah the TRS is used as an off-season learning tool for European drivers. If all goes well Nissan will probably put him on a permanent LMP and open-wheel program. I get the feeling that they want to get Jann into Formula One - http://us.gran-turismo.com/us/academy/jann/
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I doubt he will get chance to do both at same time, hoping he gets a seat in one of the top teams in the 2013 FIA European Formula Three Championship.
 
Saidur_Ali
I doubt he will get chance to do both at same time, hoping he gets a seat in one of the top teams in the 2013 FIA European Formula Three Championship.
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I suppose it would make sense to just put him in one championship if they want to take him down the open-wheel route.

In any case go GT Academy (and here's top hoping it makes it way back to New Zealand :sly:)!
 
Louie_Schumii
I suppose it would make sense to just put him in one championship if they want to take him down the open-wheel route.

In any case go GT Academy (and here's top hoping it makes it way back to New Zealand :sly:)!
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It will probably be impossible to do both as well. Can't be in two places at the same time ;). Jann also owes the winners now the other Nissan seats, due to getting GT Academy drivers banned from British GT amateur classification due to being too fast :lol:.

Looking at other drivers who have got an F3 seat, only thing stopping Jann getting one will be either money, if Jann wants to go in that direction or not, and also if Nissan does not want him to drive again a non-Nissan powered car. They refer to him as being on holiday :lol:. Also at the moment it looks like the Nissan powered F3 cars have already been taken up by other drivers.

I think there is still good potential he might get a F3 seat, Sony and PDI will have the money to put him where he wants to go and potentially there could be a Red Bull deal due to links between Nissan, Sony and PDI.


I am hoping there still will be a GT Academy and good luck to getting one for New Zealand. They have quite a lot of drivers now so they might delay next GT Academy for a year. It will be interesting if there is another GT Academy, that they might do it on a new physics engine. That should spice things up in pecking order if they do that.
 
Woo!!

Dude, getting on the F1 train, time to go all out!

And Carlin!

Very strong outfit in racing overall, he can do great things if things go right. I just hope Carlin puts more of a presence into their Euro F3 team. They're all over the place.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/105652

qIY2N92.jpg


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlin_Motorsport

Carlin has provided a well-trodden staircase to F1. Over 175 drivers have passed through the doors of the team, many on their way to the highest echelons of the sport, including F1 drivers Jenson Button, Nico Rosberg, Robert Kubica, Sebastian Vettel, Jaime Alguersuari, Daniel Ricciardo and Narain Karthikeyan.
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