Sony and Nissan bring GT Academy to Australian shores

FROM virtual to reality. Sony and Nissan finally bring its GT Academy to Australia, giving gamers the chance to become real life racing drivers.

Aussie gamers can now get the chance to go from console to cockpit as Sony’s GT Academy c

NISSAN and Sony have announced its Nissan GT Academy will be coming to Australia in 2014 following on from the program’s success in Europe and the USA.

The brain child of Darren Cox, Nissan’s global motorsport director, the GT Academy is an international competition that gives Gran Turismo players the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become a real-life professional driver. Any player who can prove their driving skills in the virtual world can compete on a real track in a real car to win a spot on the Nissan racing team.

MORE: THE LIFE OF A GT ACADEMY DRIVER

The competition originally started in 2008 in Europe, but has since expanded into the United States and now finally into Australia when it gets activated in Adelaide at the Clipsal 500 today. Any PlayStation player can join the competition with a simple download from the PlayStation Store.

That’s off putting. Nissan 370Z doing doughnuts around a Sony PlayStation gaming pod

Unlike the rest of the world, 14 Australian drivers will also be chosen through live events taken place at V8 Supercar events throughout this year’s season — on top of another 14 players that are chosen through a series of time trials in pre-selected cars on their PlayStation. Those 28 drivers compete in a finals event in Australia before 6 are chosen to represent Australia and take part in the final selection round — a racing boot camp held at the famous Silverstone racetrack in the UK against the best virtual racers in the world. This is where the drivers jump out of their virtual car into a real Nissan race car and try to prove they have what it takes to be a professional driver. Not only do they have to prove their racing skills, they have to pass fitness and media tests ensuring their suitability as a professional driver for Nissan.

The winner will then have the chance to race for Nissan’s international racing team at the Dubai 24-hours race in the United Arab Emirates against the best GT drivers in the world.

“I thought it was a great idea,” said Bob Neville, one of the founders of the Academy. “Give me 20 journalists, 20 accountants and assuming they’re fit and committed, I’ll be able to turn them into racing drivers. Same goes for PlayStation players.”

He was right. The GT Academy drivers have been nothing but a success; they’ve been so good in fact that last year they were banned from driving in the British GT Academy for being too quick.

“You just have to look at [Lucas] Ordonez’s CV, it would make any of these [Bathurst 12 Hour] drivers green — two podiums in Le Mans, winner of Nurburgring 24-hour, GT4 champion,” says Neville about his original GT Academy winner, Lucas Ordonez.

We even saw a GT Academy driver take an Australian track for the first time when Wolfgang Reip took the track as part of the Nissan Athlete Global Team, racing at the Bathurst 12 Hour.

The GT Academy is a testament to the realism of racing games like Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport and provides the perfect opportunity for racers to try to achieve their dreams of becoming a professional racing driver which may have seemed unattainable due to the high costs of motorsport.