It’s possibly the most unexpected crossover of the week, but football legend Tom Brady is apparently training hard in Gran Turismo 7 in preparation for a drive in Porsche’s new 963 Le Mans Hypercar.
When the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans comes round in June, there’ll be the largest crop of top-category cars in 12 years — in fact the largest in the entire hybrid era. A total of 16 Le Mans Hypercar (LMH) and Le Mans Daytona hypercar (LMDh) machines will compete for the overall win.
Of those 16, three will be the brand new Porsche 963, with two official factory teams as Porsche Penske Motorsport and one car run by Hertz Team Jota. Jota Sport revealed the livery earlier today, and it’s fair to say that the gold livery will stand out a little in the largely white, red, and black LMH field.
Where Tom Brady comes in is not for his football prowess, but his eponymous clothing brand “Brady”. Brady will be the official team kit supplier to the Hertz Team Jota squad, as well as providing travel and leisure wear merchandising for the #38 car.
While the driving trio of Antonio Felix da Costa, Will Stevens, and Yifei Ye will take the wheel at the famous endurance race, Brady’s social media skit above suggests he too will spend a little time driving the car with Porsche’s permission, on the condition he “put a bunch of hours on this sim”.
That sim turns out to be Gran Turismo 7, which is enjoying a healthy relationship with Porsche these days — even extending to creating a pair of Vision Gran Turismo cars for the game. No doubt this alone will be sufficient for some to believe the 963 itself will end up in GT7 sooner or later.
However Brady himself also notes that it might be a further condition that “the insurance folks stop paying attention”. We can certainly imagine that whoever underwrites the life insurance of the seven-time Super Bowl winner won’t be particularly happy with him driving such a rapid car in the first place, never mind after the performance he puts in on the video.
Of course none of this may come to pass, but it wouldn’t be unusual for a world champion sportsperson to race at Le Mans. France’s World Cup-winning goalkeeper Fabian Barthez has raced there three times!
See more articles on 24 Hours of Le Mans, Le Mans Hypercars, Porsche, and Tom Brady.
