The race is on for the GT Academy team in Dubai right now. With a little over 14 hours to go, the team has already experienced the highs and lows typical of an endurance event.
After the #123 car qualified second-in-class, Jann Mardenborough was the man behind the wheel for the start of the race. Shortly after the green flag dropped, the 2011 GT Academy champion — and recent award winner — snatched the lead in the SP3-GT4 class, and would remain there his entire two hour stint. Ricardo Sanchez would pick things up from there, but a bent suspension forced the team into the pits and out of the lead.
Sanchez would later hand the 370Z off to countryman Johnny Guindi Hamui. As the 2016 GT Academy champion, Hamui is the latest recruit in the NISMO outfit. Romain Sarazin is the fourth member of the all-Academy team.
The live stream up top is from the official NISMO TV channel. There’s also the live stream from the event itself, which you can catch here. If video isn’t an option for you right now (that pesky “work” thing, maybe?), there’s a text-only live timing page here.
At the time of writing, the team is 13th in SP3-GT4, roughly 10 laps down from the class-leading Ginetta G55 of Optimum Motorsport.
See more articles on Jann Mardenborough, Johnny Guindi Hamui, Ricardo Sanchez, and Romain Sarazin.
