GT Academy Graduate Jann Mardenborough Wins at Brands Hatch

On the day GT Academy 2012 drew to a close the most recent graduate, Jann Mardenborough, showed the participants what it’s all about by taking a maiden win at the British GT series for RJN Motorsport – 365 days after he won Sony’s competition.

Starting the 2 hour feature race at Brands Hatch’s GP Circuit in tenth position, Jann’s teammate Alex Buncombe took the first stint and managed to take the big Nissan GT-R GT3 into the lead in yet another rain-drenched opening 2 laps. An ill-timed safety car period before the pit-stop window shook the order up a bit and left Jann with work to do for his session. He soon hit the front himself and, despite serious attention from the cars behind, brought the car home first – just. In what was the closest finish in British GT history, Jann beat the second place #007 Aston Martin by 0.022s!

The RJN Motorsport team are now third overall in the British GT standings, just half a point from second, with four races left of the season.

Images courtesy of Red Square Images.

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Comments (39)

  1. RedSquareImages

    Hope you enjoy the pics folks. It was so good to see Jann take the win but more so for the dedicated team behind the scenes in particular RJN Motorsport. I will post more photos on my Facebook account (Facebook.com/redsquareimages) and on my site for viewing. Please feel free to “like” my page.

  2. TetreRouge

    I don’t understand how a heavily flawed physics model can produce good drivers, they must be using RFactor on the sly.

    1. grazbro

      I don’t think most of us have gone the speeds you can on GT5 in real life. Most of us probably only reach 100kph/63mph on a daily basis. Try driving a ZR1 up to 232kph, and start braking for a corner. Balls out crazy bro. Other than the lack of braking and steering feel at that speed on GT5 with the G27, I’d say GT5 is pretty darn close with the physics as far as vehicle feel on the track. I can ony speak from that one experience I had in real life. All other real life situations have been under 140kph, which I rarely do on GT5.

  3. tpark103

    Representing!!!! I’m very happy for Jann and I can only imagine how it must have felt to all those who finished behind the gamer turned pro-diver. Haha respect!!!!

  4. RentALife

    Wow Jann mardenborough is becoming my fav driver more and more every week keep it up hope the GRAN TURISMO 5 NISSAN GTR RJN MOTORSPORTS win the championship

  5. silicon1138

    Absolutely superb. Bravo. Well done to Jann and the whole team. Ooooohh, Brands Hatch – what a great track. That is a track i’d pay for :)

  6. Rynogtr23

    Incredible stuff by the GT Academy team.they just continue to impress the racing world. On a side note to all those who complain about GT5 has too many R35’s, there is a very good reason why.IT iS A SPECIAL MACHINE!! Keep the R35’s coming PD!!

    1. Zuel

      +1
      I’m very impressed with the performance of the team and how they continue to improve. As in this years GT Academy event there were a lot of improved drivers this year. Let’s keep up the work.

  7. davepierce07

    Wow!!…that was close. Congratulations to you Jann and your team, for your 1st win. Well done…:-))….

  8. mykem

    That’s a close race! There’s nothing more satisfying than winning by the closest margin. Congratulations to both Jann and Alex.

  9. BROHAM

    Congrats Jann! saw the pic on facebook on how close it was. Winning is winning as dom toretto would say.

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