The Nissan GT Academy Race to find a driver was recently launched at The Hyatt Hotel in New Delhi on June 4th, 2015. The event was hosted by Nissan along with its partner, Sony’s Playstation. The main aim of the programme is to discover and develop a driver that could be a gateway to motorsports.
The event was held under the theme “Racing Driver Wanted.” You can follow them on social media sites with the hashtag #RACINGDRIVERWANTED.
The Indian audience will also gain an opportunity to connect on an even deeper level and hope to be a part of one of the globally leading automobile brand with the recently launched GT Academy, Nissan. The launch of the event showed India’s inclusion in the newly created International league along with USA, Russia, Europe, Middle East and South Africa. The Academy’s Indian qualifying leg begins with ‘Live Events’ from:
5th-7th June at DLF place, Saket, Delhi.
12th-14th June, Infinity 2, Mumbai.
June 19th-21th Phoenix Market City, Whitefield, Bangalore.
June 26th-28th Express Avenue, Chennai
The National Finals will be held on July 1st-2nd at MMST Racetrack, Chennai.
Totally 20 individuals will be selected, the first 10 will be from the on-ground event participants and the latter 10 will be from online participants. The online qualifying round will be hosted on the PlayStation Network (PSN). The finalists will be personally trained and guided by Karun Chandok, India’s youngest National Racing Champion.
The Competition is an innovative platform for aspiring racers and gaming enthusiasts to register, compete and with a little bit of luck win a place in the coveted driver discovery and development programme and become a PRO racer. The virtual driving pods will be your machine and the time trials are considered as qualifying rounds and will be hosted in the aforementioned mentioned venues.
Finally the Silverstone International Race Camp which is the highlight of the whole programme will include the six shortlisted Indian contestants and pit them against 18 qualified contestants (6 each) from other nations and will be held on August 13th – 20th. The event on the 4th, which iLL attended particularly was aimed to encourage more media involvement. The previous winners gave a tough challenge and set the bar in each of the five virtual racing pods for the enthusiastic media personnel who were present.
Gran Turismo 6 is being used as the first qualifier in Nissan PlayStation 3 GT Academy because the game focuses on a high-end simulated driving experience. The technology used in the game is the closest a user will get to drive a real Nissan car.
Many of them were seen trying so hard beat the time set by the winners. Unfortunately, no hero emerged who beat the time and the hopes and dreams for a media person to join the Academy were shattered.
For more details of this exciting competition, check out Nissan India’s website.
