Racing Season Begins for 2014 GT Academy Winners

Once again, April has come round and that means that the European motorsports season has started in earnest. Fresh from their successes at the Dubai 24 Hours, the latest crop of GT Academy winners are making their first steps in a variety of championships – joined by more experienced NISMO Athletes as they start a racing career.

Matters start at Silverstone where, despite the LMP1 car’s no-show in the World Endurance Championship’s first round, one of the new drivers will be participating in the debut of a new racing category. LMP3 is the newest form of endurance racing, with a Ginetta-made chassis powered by a 420hp, 5 litre Nissan V8 intended to provide a new entry-level prototype class with complete cars costing no more than €195,000. There’s seven entries in LMP3 for its inaugural season in the European Le Mans Series, joining eleven LMP2s (ten of which are also Nissan-powered) for the 4 hour race this Saturday.

Olympian Sir Chris Hoy will be taking the wheel of one of these LMP3 machines, graduating from the GT3 NISMO GT-R he was driving in British GT last season. He’ll be partnered by 17 year old fellow Scot Charlie Robertson, the Ginetta GT4 Supercup champion, with the pair taking custody of the #3 Team LNT car all season. Alongside them in the #2 Team LNT – owned by Lawrence Tomlinson, the Ginetta chairman – will be 2014 GT Academy winner Gaetan Paletou and Ginetta G55 GT3 driver Mike Simpson, fresh from a podium in British GT at Oulton Park last weekend.

2014’s German and International GT Academy winners Marc Gassner and Ricardo Sanchez will be over in Italy for the first round of the Blancpain Endurance Series. They’ll form a trio in the GT3 Pro-Am championship with 2012 German GT Academy winner Florian Strauss as the #22 car’s professional driver. Aiming for the full GT3 title is the dream team of Wolfgang Reip, Katsumasa Chiyo and Alex Buncombe, driving the #23 GT-R.

This will, of course, be the first outing for the RJN Motorsport NISMO GT-R GT3 after the freak crash at the Nürburgring last month that caused the death of a spectator. In the wake of that incident, GT3 cars were temporarily banned from VLN races including the Nürburgring 24 Hours next month pending an investigation by the Deutscher Motor Sport Bund (DMSB), Germany’s motorsports licensing body. That investigation has now concluded, with GT3 cars reinstated under the following conditions:

• Cars from the top GT3 classes will be slowed down by a 5 percent reduction in engine power.
• In order to prevent cars from getting airborne, the speed at critical locations Flugplatz, Schwedenkreuz and Antoniusbuche will be reduced. This will be achieved by a speed limit of 200 km/h (250 km/h on the ‘Döttinger Höhe’ straight) a few hundred meters before these parts of the track. Speed limits are enforced by GPS with heavy fines in place for infringements. Once cars have passed the speed limit zone, acceleration will be allowed again.
• At Flugplatz, Schwedenkreuz, Metzgesfeld and Pflanzgarten, access to certain spectator zones will be limited until reconstruction work has been completed to allow full access again.

All Nissan factory-backed cars racing this weekend will be carrying a small black ribbon logo to mark the death of the spectator. Meanwhile the unfortunate driver, Jann Mardenborough – who was also taken to hospital as a result of the incident – has resumed driving duties in the GP3 test this weekend, topping the timesheets amongst his Carlin team-mates in 7th overall.

Images courtesy of Ginetta and Nissan.

See more articles on Blancpain Endurance Series, European Le Mans Series, Gaetan Paletou, and Ricardo Sanchez.