Entry to the Nissan PlayStation® GT Academy 2012 qualifying closed in the early hours of Monday morning after more than 830,000 people from the participating European countries had downloaded and played the online qualifying demo. The demo, based on the hugely popular Gran Turismo®5 game for PlayStation®3, saw the racing driver hopefuls from across 14 European countries complete a series of driving skills challenges. The qualifying demo made use of an array of virtual Nissan cars on a variety of circuits before culminating in a one lap time trial using a Nissan 370Z on a new virtual version of the Twin Ring Motegi circuit.

The fastest drivers from each participating country will now be invited to take part in a National Final event before the action moves to the world famous Silverstone Circuit in August for the renowned Race Camp. Following an expansion of the GT Academy programme in 2012, four separate Race Camps will be run at Silverstone with winners set to emerge from Europe, USA, Germany and the Russian Federation. All four will then embark on GT Academy’s comprehensive and immersive Driver Development Programme to bring the four gamers to international race licence standard and prepare them for their ultimate prize, a drive in the Dubai 24 Hour race in January, 2013 in a full race-spec Nissan 370Z GT4 car.

The GT Academy Time Trial 2012 attracted the most entries from the UK (over 161,000) closely followed by France and Spain. In performance terms, the fastest three drivers globally came from France (PSN ID: Ti-tech85), Spain (eclipsi_RC) and Belgium (Amo_Racing87).

GT Academy is a joint initiative created by Nissan and PlayStation®. Now in its fourth year, GT Academy has been expanded to include separate competitions for Europe (UK & Ireland; France; Italy; Spain & Portugal; Benelux; Austria, Switzerland & Poland), Germany, USA and Russia.

The innovative and comprehensive programme aims to make motor sport, traditionally difficult and expensive to pursue to international level, more accessible to the millions of talented PlayStation® driving simulation fans around the world. The three previous GT Academy Europe champions all now compete with Nissan in top-level international motor sport and are a living endorsement of the life-changing competition.

Lucas Ordoñez (Spain, 2008/09 GT Academy champion) and Jordan Tresson (France, 2010 champion) both competed at the Le Mans 24 Hour race in Nissan powered prototype cars earlier this month. Meanwhile, Jann Mardenborough (UK, winner in 2011), won a round of the British GT Championship in the GT Academy Team RJN Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 car at Brands Hatch last weekend and is also competing in the Blancpain Endurance Series in Europe.