Ricordo ancora bene quando, alcuni anni fa, gli appassionati di simulazione di guida erano considerati dei marziani stupidini che sprecavano il loro tempo davanti ad un monitor... Oggi siamo arrivati al paradosso dell'esatto opposto! Il campionato inglese nazionale della Gran Turismo, il British GT Championship, ha infatti rifiutato l'iscrizione dei piloti vincitori della GT Academy, ritenendoli troppo bravi e veloci!
In 2012 GT Academy winner Jann Mardenborough entered the British GT Championship alongside Alex Buncombe in the brand new Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3. Alex was the professional and Jann was the amateur as at that point his racing experience was incredibly limited. They pushed hard and by the close of the season the duo were in with a shot of winning the championship outright. In 2013 the threat of the talent of the newest GT Academy winners is far too real.
“I have a lot of admiration for GT Academy,” said British GT Championship Manager Benjamin Franassovici. “It has shown itself to be a great way to source raw talent and turn that into real racing talent as we saw in British GT last year with Jann Mardenborough. However Nissan’s ability to find such amazing raw talent means that we cannot accept their full season entry for British GT in 2013. Their new recruits have very little racing experience so they have to be on the lowest performance grade. Their talent, going on Jann’s speed last year, doesn’t reflect this lack of experience so it is not fair to put them up against our Pro/Gentleman grid, the basis of British GT3. Hats off to Nissan though and I should point out that there are no closed doors here.”
