GT Academy Australian finals run and won

If you've ever had someone say "video games are a waste of time" it might be worth pointing them in the direction of the Nissan Playstation GT Academy, dubbed the 'gamer to pro' program.

Six Aussie gamers who are freakishly good at the Gran Turismo 6 racing game on the Playstation 3 console are now vying for a place in a Nismo (Nissan Motorsport) racing team in 2015, as the eventual winner will be given a factory-backed motorsport drive by Nissan, to race internationally.

The six Aussie hopefuls, all male, two of whom are teenagers, will fly to Silverstone in the UK to compete in the global finals of the GT Academy, where'll they'll get to drive some of Nissan's fastest cars.

In the six years the GT Academy has been run, no Australians have won, attaining the mantle of professional race driver, something the six Aussie finalists will be hoping to change.

The six best competitors were Melbournians Peter Read, Benjamin Smith, Marcello Rivera and Luca Giacomin, Sydney’s Joshua Muggleton, and Dylan Gulson from Bathurst, who proved the most capable.

A total of 28 finalists were in the running, who were chosen from tens of thousands of entrants who posted hot laps online in Gran Turismo 6 as part of the competition.

The two-day final took place at Nissan Motorsports race HQ in Melbourne, complete with fitness tests and media interviews, both crucial parts of being a professional race driver. Then it was off to Phillip Island for real-world driving tests under the watchful of eye of V8 Supercar driver and Bathurst 1000 winner Todd Kelly.

The oldest winner in the 2014 GT Academy Australian finals is Joshua Muggleton, a 27-year-old Sydneysider who beamed: "This is the start of a dream come true. I'll have a lot of nerves waiting for race camp at Silverstone, but this is a big relief".

The two youngest finalists are aged just 19, both from Melbourne. Ben Smith, a student, said he needed to work on his fitness, but was pumped nonetheless: "This is absolutely amazing. I came here today thinking I was on the bubble, but I’ve made it through. I’m ecstatic. I can’t wait to go home and celebrate tonight".

The other youngster, Marcello Rivera, is an apprentice plumber who may be trading his tools for a fireproof race suit if all goes well.

"This is a thrill. I can’t believe it," said Rivera. "I‘ve been thinking about this for a long time, and now it’s coming true. There’s a lot of work ahead, but I have to push on and give it everything I have."

There'll be a lot of attention on journalism student Dylan Gulson, as the 22-year-old hails from the heart of Australian motorsport, Bathurst in NSW.

"Motor racing is a big part of what I do, looking over Mount Panorama every day. I can see the mountain from my home!" beamed Gulson.

"All I’ve ever wanted to do was something that involved motor racing, so to have this opportunity could be the start of something big and it’s a dream come true," he added.

If one of the Aussies wins the International Final, which will see another 24 gamers from the Middle East, India, Mexico and Thailand in the same group, they'll then go through an extreme Driver Development Programme ahead of a gruelling 24 hour endurance race in Dubai.

What started out as an interesting experiment to see whether talented video gamers could cut the mustard on the racetracks of the real world has been a resounding success, and has expanded to four places in 2014, grouped by region, up from the original one.

The inaugural GT Academy winner in 2008, Lucas Ordonez from Spain, has grown as a professional race driver, nabbing podium honours at two Le Mans 24 Hours races in the LMP2 class. He has also tested Nissan Altima V8 Supercars in Australia. Another graduate of the GT Academy is Wolfgang Reip, who competed in Australia at the 2014 Bathurst 12 Hour race with Rick Kelly in a Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3.