GT Academy 2014: UK Final Review

Silverstone again played host to the UK National Final of GT Academy this week and, despite some concerns about the quality of entrants thanks to a new entry method this year, showed the competition is just as strong as ever.

Nearly 300,000 gamers entered the competition through the GT6 Qualifier in Europe this year, but day 1 of the event was dedicated to a Gran Turismo challenge for the Facebook contest winners to determine who would advance to meet the gamer qualifiers on day 2.

With the media in attendance, the 28 finalists were then split into 4 groups of 7, each with a small journalist cabal to shadow them around the four events, consisting of yet more GT6, a fitness challenge, a real world driving challenge and the infamous media panel grilling.

The physical test proved a little less stern than usual in 2014, as the competitors – and media, invited to join in – fought through a last-man-standing press-up challenge, the five minute plank and the traditional vertical jump metric. Or at least so we thought…

Moving out to the Copse Runway, a pair of Nismo Jukes awaited an elaborate autocross course with a pair of stop boxes – 2s penalty for killing your jack man, but 5s for stopping short – and a fast reverse. Tormented clutches bore the brunt of the competitors’ (and media) attempts to break under 60s without maiming cone-shaped pit crew.

A few laps in Gran Turismo proved a welcome break, while the writers were sent around Stowe in the capabley insane hands of Jann Mardenborough and the Nismo 370Z before one final surprise physical challenge – a full, 28 man bleep test. With level 13 being beaten this year, the quality of the field keeps getting higher.

And so events shifted to inside the BRDC club house for Jann Mardenborough to announce the six UK representatives for Race Camp later this month:

Alex Porazinski – 36 (Facebook qualifier)
Ben Spurge – 19
Karl Chard – 26
Luke Wilkins – 20
Shane Green – 29
Stuart Millar – 21

Of course we wish all competitors the very best in achieving the dream of a race career courtesy of Nismo GT Academy.

The UK National Final wasn’t the only Academy activity happened this week though. Six Australian competitors booked their Silverstone International Race Camp tickets at their regional final in Melbourne. Benjamin Smith, Dylan Gulson, Joshua Muggleton, Luca Giacomin, Marcello Rivera and Peter Read will fight it out against finalists from India, Mexico, Thailand and the Middle East.

One Race Camp already finished is the German contest, taking place at Silverstone on the same day. Due to the RTL reality TV show that will be screened later this year to reveal their winner, we unfortunately are unable to bring you any of their names – though with judges Florian Strauss, Peter Pyzera and Nick Heidfeld at the helm, it’s sure to be another success story!

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