GT Academy 2010

After one of the most gruelling ‘Total 24 Hours of Spa’ in many years, the RJN Motorsport Nissan 370Z of Jordan Tresson, Alex Buncombe and Chris Ward crossed the line as the GT4 race winner! This marks the first international victory for a GT Academy winner and indeed for the production class Nissan 370Z.

There’s been a lot of attention (and rightfully so!) around winner of the first GT Academy, Lucas Ordonez, after it was announced he’d be competing in the 2011 ILMC this year. However, last year’s GT Academy winner, Jordan Tresson, is also steadily making his way up the racing ladder, running in this year’s Blancpain Endurance Series – a European championship which includes the challenging 24 Hours of Spa.

Congratulations to GTPlanet’s own Alex Ingram (known as pippin4652 in our forums and GTP_Ingram on PSN), who took first place in the national Gran Turismo 5 BRAVIA 3D Tournament! The UK-based competition, hosted by electronics retailer HMV, came to a close yesterday at their flagship Oxford Circus store. As previously announced, BBC F1 presenter Jake Humphrey was on-hand to host the finals, which consisted of the 10 fastest players from around the country (see more pictures and details at HMV Gamerbase).

GT Academy 2010 is about to be turned into a reality TV series, airing Sundays this fall on UK television’s Channel 4. As you may recall, GT Academy 2010 took the world’s fastest hot-lappers (so long as they didn’t live in excluded countries, such as Japan, Canada, or the United States…ugh) from the GT5 Time Trial Demo and put them under stewardship of real-world motorsports stars such as Eddie Jordan, Johnnie Herbert, and Sabine Schmitz for 5 days of physical, mental, and driving tests at Silverstone. The winner joined the RJN Nissan Motorsports team to compete for the FIA GT4 2010 European Cup.

We know the GT Academy 2010 Silverstone finals were intense, but what was it really like? For those of us who couldn’t make it (or were geographically excluded from the competition…), here’s the complete experience on video, showing what the competitors went through during each day of the finals. Watch all of the clips below, and don’t forget to check out video from the first GT Academy finals as well!

Jordan Tresson has been announced as the winner of GT Academy 2010. The 21-year-old Frenchman completed a short head-to-head test today on Silverstone’s new Grand Prix circuit against friend and rival Luca Lorenzini. The pair drove five flying laps each in the 420bhp Nissan 370Z GT4 race car that Tresson will now campaign in the 2010 European GT Cup series.

The GT Academy finalists took their first step on the road to the grand prize, when Italy’s Luca Lorenzini and Frenchman Jordan Tresson took to the track at the Snetterton circuit in a pair of identical Nissan 370Z cars. The pair recorded 10th and 11th place finishes respectively in the 750 All Comers event but, more importantly, secured valuable signatures that will assist them in their bid to qualify for an ‘International C’ race licence.

After five intense days of on and off track action, Luca Lorenzini from Mantova in Italy and Jordan Tresson from Villers La Montagne in northern France have been announced as the two winners of the GT Academy 2010. More hard work awaits the victorious pair who will be back at Silverstone next Monday to commence an intensive driver training programme to qualify them for an international C race licence. Only one of the pair will then be given the opportunity race a full season in the European GT4 Cup in a Nissan 370Z GT car.

With the famous Silverstone Circuit bathed in sunshine today (Monday), the GT Academy 2010 action hotted up once more. The final four Gran Turismo® racers in the competition had an incredible day of on-and-off track action. Jordan Tresson from France, Marco Calvo from Spain, Luca Lorenzini from Italy and Daniel Collins from Ireland were pitted directly against each other in a series of challenges designed to unearth the racing driver with the most potential to succeed in the European GT4 Cup race series.

After the toughest day of the competition so far, the fate of the eight Gran Turismo® racers left in GT Academy 2010 has been decided. Jordan Tresson from France, Marco Calvo from Spain, Luca Lorenzini from Italy and Daniel Collins from Ireland will all progress to the final two days of the Silverstone ‘boot camp’. The four will keep their hopes alive of being one of two drivers that will undergo an intensive race training programme to qualify for an International C Race licence. One winner will then progress to drive a Nissan 370Z GT car in the European GT4 Cup.

Difficult conditions greeted the 18 at Silverstone today (Saturday). But despite some heavy rain during the day, all driving activities went ahead as planned. A sprint competition in the 370Zs was followed by 3 separate activities in the afternoon – a head-to-head, parallel course time-trial in the awesome Nissan GT-R, drifting and car control in the 370Z, and lapping Stowe circuit in the 370Zs with an instructor assessing their progress.

The first day of the GT Academy 2010 Silverstone Finals are complete! The participants saw little bit of everything: fitness tests, written tests, 370Z track time, and a karting endurance race. The France/Portugal team has done the best so far, winning the karting competition, with Spain and Benelux coming in 2nd and 3rd, respectively. Read through the first-hand reports in our new GT Academy 2010 forum, or keep reading to check out the complete gallery from Day 1.

Well, as a last minute replacement and completely-baffled newbie amongst serious publications’ reporters (I count the Daily Star, Ireland Daily Star, Times, Mail, AutoWeek and the BBC, amongst others), I’m here at the GT Academy Boot Camp Media Day…

The GT Academy 2010 Silverstone Finals are getting an extra boost of star power this year, with long-time F1 team manager Eddie Jordan, Nurburgring super-star Sabine Schmitz, and F1/sports car driver Johnny Herbert joining the team. Of all the new judges, the introduction of Eddie Jordan is perhaps the most significant, given his uncanny ability to choose and develop world champions. Eddie has worked closely with successful drivers such as Ayrton Senna and Damon Hill – he even gave Michael Schumacher his first season in Formula 1. He also worked with Johnny Herbert, who himself enjoyed an 11-year career in F1 and a victory at the Le Mans 24 Hours.

Here’s a nice clip to give you an idea of how the combined French/Swiss GT Academy 2010 finals went down. Thanks to gamer28 for sending this in!

At the Spanish GT Academy 2010 finals, Lucas Ordoñez, winner of the first GT Academy, got to try his hand at the latest GT5 build running the competition. Here’s his lap around the Nurburgring Nordschleife! Thanks to everyone (including Lucas himself!) for sending this in.

The free Gran Turismo 5 demo used to host the first round of competition in GT Academy 2010 has been downloaded over 1 million times in Europe within the first three weeks of its release (that’s one download approximately every 2 seconds), according to SCEE. Here’s what Yamauchi had to say about the milestone:

Announced just hours ago on the PlayStation EU Blog, GT Academy 2010 will be held in a brand new demo of Gran Turismo 5 hitting the PlayStation Store on December 17, 2009. The demo will feature a stock and tuned version of the Nissan 370Z, and, while Sony has decided not to release the track just yet, I have been aware of the competition for some time now and GTPlanet can reveal the demo will include either Spa Francorchamps or the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. However, Sony described the track as a “specially created section of a new Gran Turismo 5 circuit”, which suggests to me it’s the Indianapolis GP Circuit, as it is quite literally a “section” of a larger circuit. (Let’s not forget it was also the big track prominently shown in Gran Turismo 5’s E3 2009 trailer.)