How to qualify for this year's Gamer to racer academy

GT 6 Nissan Leaf

The qualifying stage for the sixth season of the NISMO PlayStation GT Academy has come to a close, with thousands of racing driver hopefuls across Europe entering the virtual-to-reality competition over the past eight weeks. Qualifying rounds were open on Gran Turismo 6 the ultimate aim of becoming the next GT Academy Champion, racing internationally with Nissan as a NISMO Athlete.

GT 6 Nissan Leaf

The fastest qualifiers in each of the 12 participating European countries will now go on to their local National Final. Here they will be joined by winners from a number of ‘Live Events’ plus top gamers from the GT Academy Challenge on Facebook. The Facebook competition closed at the same time as the online Gran Turismo 6 qualifier, and the highest scorers in each country will now be contacted with an invitation to an exclusive local Gran Turismo gaming day where their PlayStation  skills will be put to the test. The top performers at these events will earn a place in their National Final.

The National Finals will see the gamers competing with each other on Gran Turismo 6, as well as being tested for fitness, personality and skill behind the wheel of a real Nissan NISMO performance car. The competitors who perform the best overall will be selected to represent their country at the European ‘Race Camp’ in July, to be held at Silverstone Circuit where their Formula One heroes will have raced only three weeks earlier.

At Race Camp, the PlayStation gamers will be put through a series of mental and fitness tests, as well as a series of NISMO-themed driving challenges designed to unearth the most talented racer under the watchful eye of experienced mentors and judges from the world of motorsport. At the end of the week, the gamer with the most racing potential will have the chance to become a GT Academy Champion and a NISMO Athlete, one of Nissan’s elite racing drivers. They will be rewarded with a comprehensive Driver Development Programme, culminating in the opportunity to race internationally for Nissan at the Dubai 24 Hours race in January 2015.

The success of the GT Academy Driver Development Programme can be seen just by looking at the entry list for last weekend’s Le Mans 24 Hour race. Four virtual-to-reality champions lined up to compete in this year’s Le Mans, with Jann Mardenborough and Mark Shulzhitskiy in the Nissan-powered OAK Racing LMP2 prototype and Lucas Ordoñez and Wolfgang Reip in the innovative Nissan ZEOD RC. Wolfie successfully completed the first ever all-electric lap of Le Mans in the ZEOD RC before bad luck befell the car in the first few laps of the race. Jann and Mark both had stand out performances, taking the lead of the LMP2 class and racing away from the pack until a technical issue halted their chances of standing on the top step of the podium. Despite this they still finished within the top ten overall, and fifth in class. Meanwhile, last year’s GT Academy champions are racing in the international Blancpain Endurance Series and have already scored their first win, fittingly at Silverstone!