Everywhere you look at the moment there’s a GT Academy driver driving something somewhere. Whether it’s the Blancpain Endurance Series in France, the Nissan Micra Cup in Canada or GP3 in Austria, there’s a guy in a white and red suit who used to play racing games for fun sticking it up the sharp end in a Nissan of one kind or another.
For last weekend we need to first look at the Pirelli World Challenge at Road America in Wisconsin. Nissan as a brand had a cracking weekend, with wins in all three races but for Academy watchers it’s eyes on Bryan Heitkotter with the headlines.
Bryan’s had a good tilt at the GTA class of PWC this season, grabbing plenty of silverware and adding to the tally at Road America. He took another win in the first race, followed up by a second place in the next – but a driveshaft problem ruled him out of race 3 altogether. He is still sitting 4th in the overall standings though, with 13 of the 20 races completed.
A continent away, Lucas Ordonez was driving another round of the Japanese F3, this time at the Okayama circuit. An excellent showing saw him qualify 4th but finish on the podium in 3rd place for both races – so despite missing the entire 4th round at Fuji due to racing at Le Mans, he’s 4th overall in the championship standings. In the second race he even knocked championship leader Nick Cassidy off the podium on a track at which it’s notoriously tricky to pass.
While the Goodwood Festival of Speed is less of a race and more of an exhibition event, no-one can get this message through to racing drivers. First to tackle the hill was Jann Mardenborough who, while not eligible to set a time in the Supercar category due to the bespoke nature of his car – a Nissan Juke R “2.0”, fashioned from the running gear of the GT-R NISMO crashed at the Molecomb corner by Sir Chris Hoy last year – still cracked the climb in a time that would have been good enough for sixth spot overall, at 57.21s.
Alex Buncombe on the other hand was very much eligible to set a time in the GT-R GT3. He blew through the climb nearly ten seconds faster than Jann at 47.37s to go eighth overall and fastest in class – only beaten by a mix of time attack, Pikes Peak and F1 cars.
As for Sir Chris Hoy… well, he returned to the scene of last year’s crime to be the first man to drive the Ginetta-Nissan LMP3 up the hill, cleanly this time. He was however joined on the Molecomb hall of shame by land speed record holder Andy Green, who stuffed his Bloodhound-liveried Jaguar XJR into the haybales. Whoops.
See more articles on Bryan Heitkotter and Lucas Ordonez.
That Juke was built from the running gear of the GT-R Nismo…LMP?
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Great stuff from the Academy graduates. While GT still has its critics (some of whom are justified, to be fair), it’s heartening to see that ‘our’ game has produced some quality racing drivers, and will no doubt continue to do so.
Now, that LMP3 would be a welcome surprise.