Nissan Motors, along with its partner PlayStation, today launched Nissan PlayStation GT Academy at an event in New Delhi. GT Academy is an innovative platform that offers aspiring racers and gaming enthusiasts to register, compete and potentially win a place in the coveted driver discovery and development programme. This Academy could be the gateway to motorsports for motor racing aspirants in India. At the launch event, Mr. Lucas Ordonez from Spain, 2008 GT Academy Winner & 2013 Nismo Athelete and Indian Racing ace Karun Chandhok were also present.
The international award-winning Nissan PlayStation GT Academy is in its sixth year and has been hugely popular and successful in Europe, Russia, the USA, the Middle East and South Africa. Today’s launch signifies India’s inclusion in the newly-created international league.
GT Academy’s Indian qualifying rounds will begin with ‘Live Events’ in high-footfall shopping malls in five select Indian cities and at a later stage will also include an online qualifying round that will be hosted on the PlayStation Network (PSN). Nissan will host the inaugural round of the competition on February 6, 2014 at the Delhi Auto Expo in Greater Noida in the National Capital Region.
Entered by racing on the Gran Turismo6 video game, exclusive to PlayStation 3, GT Academy is a ‘virtual to reality’ programme that will test the racing acumen of enthusiasts through a time-trial competition on PlayStation GT6 racing simulators. The time-trials should be considered as qualifying rounds and will be hosted at shopping malls in New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai.
Out of the five cities, fourteen contestants who clock the quickest lap times will be eligible to compete in the National Final, the first gateway to GT Academy’s coveted International Race Camp. The 14 contestants who enter the National Final will need to go through a two-day intensive physical and mental training examination programme which will filter out only six contestants who will be eligible for the International Race Camp at Silverstone in the United Kingdom.
Popular among international contestants as the best one week of their lives, the Silverstone Race Camp will include the six shortlisted Indian contestants and pit them against 18 qualified contestants (six each) from other nations that are also new to the programme. Under the supervision of experts from the world of motorsports all international contestants will undergo and endure exhaustive training for mental and physical strength. Their driving skills will be tested and honed on the Formula One Silverstone motor racing circuit in Nismo-tuned Nissan 370Zs and GT-Rs. GT Academy’s Silverstone Race Camp will eliminate all but one overall winner, one from any one of the competing nations, who will then move on to the Driver Development Programme and learn all the skills necessary to compete in an international ‘graduation race’
