Nurburgring Nordschleife

Peter Lyon, a MotorTrend editor who will be joining teammate Kazunori Yamauchi for this weekend’s 24 Hours Nurburgring race, was first to try out the latest demo including the Nurburgring GP circuit and described it as “simply stunning”. His most notable observation, though, was that of a new penalty system:

The Nurburgring GP Course has just been confirmed for Gran Turismo 5 in a German press release! All three configurations of the track (Nordschleife, GP, and the full VLN Circuit) will be available. Better yet, we’ve got beautiful new screenshots of the new circuit, showing a lot of trackside details have been included and updated. We first picked up on the possibility of the circuit coming to GT5 when its grandstands were visible in this GT PSP trailer, and fortunately it looks like that turned out to be an actual clue. Keep reading for the translated press release and new images. Thanks to Stefan1904 for the tip!

As if you needed any more reasons to get excited about the possibilities in GT5‘s Photomode, here’s two sharp new images of the SLS AMG on the Nurburgring.They’ve been released on the announcement that the SLS AMG/Nurburgring demo, which has been featured at the Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart, will soon be playable at Mercedes dealers across Europe. So, if you’ve got a dealership close by, be sure and keep an eye out for it.

The latest videos from Mimaximax have taken an interesting turn over the past few days, as he begins to feature some of the more unusual and exotic cars found in the demo. Most notably, we get to see the highly-anticipated McLaren F1 in action on the Nurburgring, along with a race-prepped TVR Tuscan Speed 6. He’s even thrown in footage of a Mercedes SLR and in-car replay from a Nissan GTR V-Spec for good measure!

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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3FNYJ2emp4

A big thanks to reader “slyght”, who picked up on my request for video from SLS AMG Driving Experience at the Mercedes-Benz Museum. He’s recorded and shared a complete (and mostly clean!) lap of the Nurburgring Nordschleife in the demo, which you can see above. According to his email, the speakers were quite muddled on the TV so we don’t get an accurate impression of the sound, but the demo does include all the basic settings and the option to select professional or standard physics. Thanks once again to slyght and everyone who sent this in!

German readers, listen up! Via their “Daimler” blog, Mercedes-Benz has just announced the “Gran Turismo 5 SLS AMG Driving Experience” in the Mercedes Museum at the company’s Stuttgart headquarters. Apparently, the installation  consists of two GT5 Prologue-branded cockpits (the same kind Sony awarded GTPlanet user, Ahmed back in ’08) running yet another new GT5 demo featuring only the SLS AMG and the Nurburgring Nordschleife. What really makes it special, though, is a very generous time limit of what appears to be around 12:00 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5H5AGaaiio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwLtnur5F84

Here’s another look at Nordschleife game-play from the GT5 demo running at CES 2010, via TheBitBag. Thanks to Lord Von for sending this in!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBnFqrftXfU

Yesterday, I made a handy list of different subjects us die-hard Gran Turismo fans really wanted to see from CES, and our friends at GameSpot have covered each request (thanks, guys!). There’s quite a few clips, so just click through below to see each one – they’re also available on GTPlanet’s YouTube channel.

The show floor has finally opened up at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and reports of the Gran Turismo 5 demo are starting to come in. According to Motor Trend, there are 12 cars and 4 playable tracks in the latest demo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pmx9QITCfyY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ateTG5bdoEc

Kazunori Yamauchi’s participation in the VLN’s BFGoodwrich Langstreckenmeisterschaft event on the Nurburgring Nordschleife last month is carefully documented in the latest issue of Auto Express. Editor Owen Mildenhall, who shared the car with Yamauchi and Peter Lyon during the 4 hour endurance race, has posted about the experience on the magazine’s website. Unfortunately, the differential on the team’s Lexus IS-F wasn’t up to the task, forcing Yamauchi to retire the car after just 40 minutes behind the wheel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzcVXzrUH9A

When the Nurburgring Nordschleife was first revealed in Gran Turismo 4, it was hard to complain about the missing GP circuit.  However, you’re lying to yourself if you haven’t wished to drive through those tire barriers separating the Nordschleife from the rest of the track, and everyone has been anxiously hoping for it to appear in Gran Turismo 5.

Citroen continues to promote their popular Citroen GT with increasingly high-profile events.  Just last weekend, Polyphony Digital’s real-life concept car helped kick off the infamous 24 Hours of the Nurburgring, and was on public display during the entire event.  This is the first of several appearances for the car across Europe – coming up next, it will take part in the driver’s parade of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and will attend the UK’s Goodwood Festival of Speed in July.