Aussie six selected for GT final

A six-strong Aussie team of would-be professional racing drivers has been selected to contest the Nissan PlayStation GT Academy world final at Silverstone after an intense two-day competition on the Gold Coast last weekend.

The six Aussie video gamers will be competing at the famous UK track in early August against each other and rivals from around the globe for a full racing contract with Nissan’s GT3 program.

Previous graduates of the seven-year old program have included GP3 drivers Jann Mardenborough, Nissan LMP1 driver Lucas Ordonez and reigning Bathurst 12 hour winners Wolfgang Reip and Florian Strauss.

In 2014 Australian Josh Muggleton just missed out on winning the GT Academy final (LINK).

To be among the top 20 who fought out the Australian finals at Movieworld on the Gold Coast last weekend entrants had to post a time on PlayStation
Gran Turismo 6 via either online qualifiers that started in April, or by live qualifying events at the amusement park last week.

Over the weekend the 20 finalists completed more gaming on Gran Turismo 6, had fitness tests, media sessions and on-track driving challenges in Nissan sports cars. The final was overseen by a group of experts led by Nissan Motorsport V8 Supercars drivers Rick and Todd Kelly.

The competition certainly challenged the top 20, some of whom had never driven a manual car before.

The six Australians selected for Silverstone this year are Nick Dalton (21), Matthew Simmons (26), Tyler Blackburn (20), Corey Creed (25), Simon Feigl (30) and Elliott Schutte (29).

There are some great stories amongst the six; Schutte travelled all the way from Western Australia to take part and only got through via the live qualifiers, while Simmons drives a courier van for Australia Post.

“I can’t wait to go over top my first race track in Europe, go out in race cars and compete on the international stage. It’s going to be amazing,” said Simmons.

“I was devastated last year (when failing to progress from 2014 GT Academy Australian Final), but I never saw it as a negative, I took it all as a positive.

“The next day, I was straight into training to get myself better to become a race car driver. Over the last few days, I’ve felt that I could bring it, and having this medal around my neck means absolutely everything.”

The top six will join Rick Kelly in flying to Silverstone F1 circuit for the 2015 GT Academy international race camp, where they will compete against finalists from Mexico, Turkey, northern Africa and the United States for the chance to become a professional racing driver for Nissan and NISMO.