Posted by Tin Cup on Apr 16, 2012

GT Academy 2012 coming may 1st

Great news coming form the EU Playstation blog, as the previous 4 years there is again a GT academy in 2012 thats starts this May 1st. The concept is the same as previous years where we start with a online challenge with the difference there will be special downloadable content just for the event that is available to download for everybody free of charge, even for the ones that don’t own GT5. The GT academy is the highlight of the year for every Gran Turismo fan with a real chance to become a real life professional racing driver.

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 Mardenboroughhave both gone on to establish themselves as genuine racing talent whose blossoming racing careers will continue in 2012.

This year as in previous years, GT Academy 2012 will consist of a number of stages kicking off with aPlayStation 3 based online event, National Finals, real life driving challenges at Racecamp, Silverstone and then on onwards and upwards towards a potential chance to race for Nissan at the Dubai 24H race in January 2013.

This year’s Academy is even more special as it will be kicked off with a newly created online qualification event developed by Kazunori Yamauchi and the team at Polyphony. This brand new Gran Turismo 5based content will be completely free to download from PlayStation Network as of May 1 and you don’t even need to own Gran Turismo 5 to play it.

The new content features a set of exclusive challenges that should be a lot of fun whether you’ve played Gran Turismo before or whether you are coming to the game as a complete newbie.

So what countries are involved in GT Academy 2012 and how are they arranged? Well here’s the rundown:

Group 1

UK & Ireland

France

Spain

Portugal

Benelux

Poland

Switzerland

Austria

Group 2

Germany

Group 3

Russia