For Gran Turismo fans and hopefully a few soon to be fans, I’m delighted to confirm that today is the day: at 5pm BST / 6pm CET GT Academy 2012 will go live.

GT Academy, as some of you will be aware, is a special competition that PlayStation and Nissan created to turn PlayStation gamers into real drivers. Over the last three years, we have unearthed some real genuine racing talent and now this could be your chance to make those racing fantasies a reality or, failing that, earn some bragging rights against your mates.

The first stage of Academy is an online qualification event and, this year Yamauchi-san and the Polyphony team have created an exclusive, feature packed new piece of Gran Turismo content that promises to be a lot of fun. What’s even more exciting is that the content is free to download and you don’t need to have a copy of Gran Turismo to play the game.

Here’s how everything works – the exclusive Gran Turismo content will be available to download from PlayStation Store, free of charge, from 17.00BST / 18.00CEST on May 1 until 23.59BST / 00.59CEST on 24 June. You can download and take part at any time during this period, so even if you miss the start you can still play catch up and get involved.

Once you have downloaded the content, Polyphony Digital will release new rounds approximately every two weeks; in total there are eight rounds and within each round there are five sections.

Here’s a list of the rounds and when they will be available:

Round 1 and 2:

1/5 (Tue) 17.00BST – 24/6 (Sun) 23:59 BST

Round 3 and 4:

14/5 (Mon) 00:00 – 24/6 (Sun) 23:59 BST

Round 5 and 6:

28/5 (Mon) 00:00 – 24/6 (Sun) 23:59 BST

Round 7 and 8 (ROUND 8 IS FINAL/QUALIFICATION EVENT):

11/6 (Mon) 00:00 – 24/6 (Sun) 23:59 BST

Each of the rounds features a different racing skill to learn and master. You will need to clear a round to be able to progress to the next one.
If you are able to complete all events in a round to Gold standard, you will receive the car from that round for use in GT5, but even if you manage to just get through at Bronze level, there are special in-game treats to unlock.

Throughout the May – June period you will be able to check how you are doing compared to your PSN friends and others from all over Europe – but you will not be competing at this point; you will, of course, be honing your skills though.

And you will need to have done some serious honing as things will get very interesting in the very final event of the eighth round.

This is where you will have to show your game face. Pull out all the stops in this final event and place within the top 16 places, then you’re in with a chance of progressing to the National Final event in July, the Silverstone Racecamp in July and the the Driver Development Programme from September to December, all culminating the starting grid for the Dubai 24HR race for one skilled driver.

More information on GT Academy will follow very soon so and you can read up at gran-turismo.com and also get involved with the Academy community at facebook.com/GTAcademy and over at the official PlayStation Forums in the following languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish.

It’s time to get your race face on!

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I hope you all had a great Easter. I am absolutely delighted to share some news that will be as mouth-watering as the chocolate treats you hopefully received last week.

The great news I can reveal today is that in just a few short weeks (May 1, so three to be precise), we will see the return of GT Academy.

GT Academy, as some of you may recall, is a remarkable PlayStation and Nissan competition that intends to take gamers from sofa, bedroom or other suitably domestic environment, to the high-octane world of international motorsport.

Now entering its fourth year, the competition has so far unearthed three real-life racing drivers from Europe and a fourth US driver from amongst the massed ranks of global Gran Turismo gamers.

The first ever GT Academy winner Lucas Ordonez managed an incredible podium finish last year at the world famous Le Mans 24H and the subsequent winners Jordan Tresson and Jann Mardenborough have both gone on to establish themselves as genuine racing talent whose blossoming racing careers will continue in 2012.

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If you saw the GT Academy post last Friday you will know that this weekend, history was made with a race team composed entirely of PlayStation gamers taking to the track at the Dubai 24H as the final act in the GT Academy competition run in conjunction with Nissan.

The record breaking team included Lucas Ordoñez, winner of the first GT Academy in 2008, and 2010 winner Jordan Tresson. The remaining two berths in the team were taken by Jann Mardenborough and Bryan Heitkotter, the winners of the 2011 GT Academy contests in Europe and America respectively.

Following a weekend of drama and tension, the four Academy winning gamers managed to achieve an outstanding third-place in class podium finish. The chequered flag was eventually taken by British driver Jann Mardenborough.

Reflecting on his incredible journey from Gran Turismo 5 gamer to real-life professional racing driver an ecstatic Jann had the following to say:

“That was without doubt the weekend of my life, the only thing that compares to it is winning GT Academy last June. It feels like pure joy. This is just the first step for me and now I hope that my performance in Dubai can take me further.”

The race marks the end of this particular chapter of the GT Academy story for both Jann and Bryan Heitkotter, but I’m sure it will not be the end of their journey.

More news on GT Academy will be coming soon and will be found here on PlayStation Blog and gran-turismo.com.

In the meantime I hope you will join me in congratulating our four gamers on their outstanding, record-breaking achievement.

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Hello Everyone, and welcome to GT Academy live from the Dubai 24H.

I’m here today in Dubai on a rather historic occasion. As I write, four drivers who all earned their professional driving status through Gran Turismo and the GT Academy contest are on the track in an all GT Academy race team at the famously testing Dubai 24H race.

For those who don’t recall how we got here, a quick recap. GT Academy is a competition where we take a PlayStation gamer and, with the help of our partner Nissan, turn them into professional racing drivers. Last Spring, a young Welsh Gran Turismo player called Jann Mardenborough became the third European winner of the GT Academy contest.

Jann, having now completed his professional driver training with flying colours, lines up in a 420bhp Nissan 370Z GT4 race car team alongside our previous GT Academy winners Lucas Ordoñez and Jordan Tresson. Bryan Heitkotter, the winner of SCEA’s inaugural GT Academy in 2011, completes the all-Gran-Turismo line up.

Qualifying for the race took place on Thursday with senior GT Academy driver Lucas taking the wheel for the second qualifying session and posting a 2:11.142 around the 5.39km track – good enough for fourth in class. This race has 80 cars entered in a number of different classes. Nissan is running a ‘Champions’ GT-R GT3 car (third on the grid overall) that is up against Ferraris, Porsches, Audi R8s, Mercedes SLS AMGs. With four quick drivers who have all won Championships for Nissan this year they are looking for a win.

Our GT Academy boys are in a tricky class called SP2 that has some very fast cars in it. The experts say that all of our drivers are all equally quick and that means that by the end of 24 hours if they have no technical issues they will be in for a good result despite the stiff competition.

The race will be run in 30 plus degree heat. After coping with this afternoon’s challenging conditions and negotiating the 80 cars on track, the boys then face the different challenge of driving in darkness and identifying their braking markers lap after lap – while still having to pass slower cars and looking out for the fast cars coming up behind them.

I feel very lucky to be here to witness this incredible PlayStation and Nissan achievement and we have everything crossed for a great result for the GT Academy guys!

Post race news and results will appear here on PlayStation Blog and gran-turismo very soon so keep checking back.

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I am delighted to bring you news of the continued exploits of a PlayStation gamer who some of you may have heard of – a young chap from Spain called Lucas Ordoñez.

Those of you who are Gran Turismo or GT Academy fans may recall the story of Lucas – the winner of the inaugural GT Academy back in 2008. Following successful campaigns in the European GT4 Cup driving a Nissan 370Z, this year Lucas stepped up to race a Nissan-powered LMP2 car in the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup. With his Signatech Nissan team-mates, Franck Mailleux and Soheil Ayari, Lucas fulfilled a lifelong ambition by competing in one of the greatest races in the world – the Le Mans 24 Hours.

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