A whopping 830,000+ people downloaded and played the online qualifying demo for the Nissan PlayStation GT Academy 2012 by the time entries closed last week. The UK headed the nations entering, with over 161,000 hopefuls taking part followed by France and Spain as drivers attempted to record the fastest one lap time trail in a Nissan 370Z around the new version of the Twin Ring Motegi Circuit.
The 16 fastest online gamers from the UK and Ireland will join 16 Live Event Wild Card winners to take part in a National Final event at Silverstone Circuit on July 17-18, 2012), with the challenge of both Gran Turismo 5 challenges and driving tests in a real Nissan 370Z. The 6 best from the 32 finalists will then be selected for the International GT Academy Race Camp which takes place in August.
If you haven’t seen previous competitions, the overall winner will end up being trained to international race licence standard to prepare for a drive in the Dubai 24 Hour race in January 2013 in a full race-space Nissan 370Z GT4 car.
Previous winners Lucas Ordonez (Spain, 2008/2009) and Jordan Tresson (France, 2010) both competed at the Le Mans 24 Hours race in Nissan-powered prototypes this year, whilst Jann Mardenborough (UK, 2011) has gone on to win a round of the British GT Championship in the GT Academy Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 car.
Following the success of previous years, 2012 saw the GT Academy expand to include separate competitions for Europe, Germany, USA and Russia, with each Race Camp winner from each region getting the opportunity to compete in a Nissan car at a national level race.
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