GT Academy Competition Begins

The GT Academy competition was officially kicked off today!  To sign up and participate, visit gtacademy.eu and enter your PSN ID.  Once registered, simply view the online events in Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, and post a fast lap around the Eiger Nordwand in a Nissan Fairlady Z Version S.  Be sure to register in the competition with your Official GTPlanet PSN ID to show the world just how fast GTPlanet drivers are!  The full press release is posted after the jump…

The ultimate competitive driving test began today as pan-European competition GT Academy went live in PLAYSTATION®3 title Gran Turismo 5 Prologue™. The competition will see entrants compete for a place in a real-life racing academy at the UK’s Silverstone track. Created by PlayStation and Nissan, GT Academy is designed to unite the worlds of virtual and real-life racing and make the dreams of aspiring race drivers a reality.The competition is open to residents of the UK & Ireland, France, Italy, Germany & Austria, Spain, Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. To enter, PS3 owners must register their PLAYSTATION®Network sign-in ID on www.gtacademy.eu. The next time they play Gran Turismo 5 Prologue online on PSN, they will be able to race in the GT Academy Time Trial where they will compete to be the fastest around the Eiger Nordwand track in a Nissan Fairlady Z Version S ‘07. Players can continue trying to improve their fastest time until the competition closes on July 18, 2008.Following the close of this phase of the competition, the fastest 20 drivers in each country will be invited to a national final to compete head-to-head on Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. The fastest three drivers from each national final will then travel to Silverstone, the home of British motor racing, to take part in the GT Academy – a real-life driving competition on the Silverstone track itself. Competitors will not only have to prove their driving skills in a real-life Nissan GT-R but will also have their mental and physical skills assessed in a series of tests. The two fastest drivers from Silverstone then have the chance to enter a four-month training programme to earn their racing licenses and take part in a real life race, driving a fully race-prepared Nissan 350Z at the 24 Hour endurance event in Dubai in January 2009.Speaking at the Nurburgring 24H race last weekend, Kazunori Yamauchi, Head of Polyphony Digital producers of Gran Turismo said: “This is a very exciting day for Gran Turismo. The Gran Turismo story started 10 years ago with the ambition to make a racing game that gives players the ultimate driving simulation experience. The GT Academy is the ultimate realisation of this ambition, taking the Gran Turismo experience to the next level.For full terms and conditions and more information about GT Academy visit www.gtacademy.eu.