GT Academy Drivers Place Fifth Overall at Dubai 24 Hours in Nissan GT-R
Finishing fifth overall and second in class at the Dubai 24 Hours race is an impressive feat, but this team isn’t like the others. The five drivers were just avid gamers only six months ago.
Selected by the 2014 GT Academy program, the drivers proved their racing skills in the video game Gran Turismo for a chance to race in real life for Nissan. Last weekend, these five drivers competed against a field of 95 other cars in a GT Academy/Team RJN Nissan GT-R to their best-ever finish so far.
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It’s quite remarkable that the racing skills honed in a video game can be directly transplanted into real-world motorsports to actually be competitive with career-long, professional racing drivers on such a high level. 24 hour endurance races require a lot of discipline from the drivers, as they need to know when to race at full speed and when to ease off to stay in the race.
The GT-R they were driving was a remarkable machine as well. The purpose of 24 hour endurance races is to test the the limits of both drivers and their cars; any weakness in either will show itself quickly in such a long race. The RJN GT3 spec Nissan GT-R performed nearly flawlessly for the team, leaving the rest up to the drivers.
Related: Nick Hamman Wins Season 4 of GT Academy
It looks like this GT Academy team has a lot of potential and we’re excited to see what they will pull off at their next race.
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