A lot has been said over the last 6 years about Nissan’s GT
Academy, its international driving academy that ties-in with Sony’s PlayStation
brand. For those unfamiliar with the
concept, owners of Sony PlayStation consoles can play the popular Gran Tourismo
driving simulator online in competition with other players, the best of them
being invited to a training camp at a famous track, like Paul Ricard in France
or Laguna Seca in northern California, where they compete for a place in the
academy proper. Once accepted, they are
coached in driving technique, race craft, and how to communicate with
engineers, as well as fitness, nutrition, and even how to conduct oneself in
interviews.
Admission to the academy has generally been seen by the
wider racing community as the prize itself as opposed to as a stepping stone to
a legitimate racing career. I too have
been guilty of this – while chatting to a Nissan engineer prior to the 2013 24
Hour of Le Mans, I made an off the cuff remark about the academy graduates that
was taken as more derogatory than I had intended:
Engineer: ‘You
do realize that one of our graduates, Jan Mardenborough, is racing in LMP2 this
year, don’t you?’
Me: ‘Uh,
no… I didn’t realize that.’
The more equipment-intensive the sporting endeavour, the
more necessary early parental encouragement and involvement becomes. Growing up in a slum on the outskirts of Rio
de Janeiro is no impediment to becoming the world’s greatest footballer – all
you need is a ball. However the more
equipment required the higher up in socio-economic circumstances you generally
need to look to find parents not only willing but also financially able to give
their children the early start that’s necessary to make it to the top. Tennis racquets, cricket bats and pads, and
ice hockey equipment all require investment, quite apart from driving kids
around to courts, ovals and rinks in order for them to develop their
skills. But it all pales in comparison
to motorsport.
This is what makes the GT Academy so disruptive. It offers an opportunity for those that may
have always had the passion and desire to go racing but perhaps didn’t have
parents with the money or inclination to do so, and aren’t independently
wealthy enough in adulthood to fund anything more than modest racing
exploits. Until now, without beginning
in karts at an early age and sufficient funding throughout their early careers,
the most many drivers could hope for would be to take their clapped-out Mazda
MX-5 track car to a podium finish at their local club meet on an abandoned air
field.
Up until now Mardenborough and inaugural winner Lucas
Ordonez have been the most visibly successful of the Academy graduates. However they have been exceptions rather than
the rule, lending credence to opinions that see the academy purely as a
marketing exercise. But that’s all
changed in the last month with GT Academy graduate-heavy entries achieving an
in-class podium finish in the Dubai 24 Hours and, astonishingly, an outright
win at the Bathurst 12 Hour. And it
didn’t stop there: just this week Nissan announced that Mardenborough and
Ordonez will be racing in its factory LMP1 entries at Le Mans in 2015,
something that was unthinkable just a few years ago.
Generally the reaction has been positive, but not
unanimously. There has been a distinct,
vocal minority that have been critical of the fact that the graduates have been
racing classed as amateurs, despite the fact that they earn a salary from
Nissan and spend all their time focused on racing.
These sentiments have generally come from GT drivers on the
fringe – those that have put in the years of hard work, driving karts and open
wheelers, getting their knuckles bloody, begging, borrowing and stealing
whatever they need to just to make it to the grid at the next round. They are highly skilled, but for whatever
reason haven’t been able to make the transition to being able to make a living
from racing. It’s understandable that
they would feel hard done by.
While I understand and somewhat agree with the sentiment
(that amateur drivers should be just that – amateur), the argument is somewhat
lost given the fact that at Bathurst the Nissan won outright. Had the team been celebrating as hard with a
class win it may have been somewhat ungracious.
But when Jorge Lorenzo, two time MotoGP World Champion, drove a Ferrari
458 in the Gulf 12 Hour classified as a Gentleman Driver one can to see their
point. Lorenzo and teammates took out
the class win against people who had to be back at work the following Monday.
But even if they no longer have day jobs, it doesn’t account
for the fact that they don’t have a decade or more of seat time. Patrick Dempsey, best known for playing Dr. Derek
Sheperd on Grey’s Anatomy, is one of the aforementioned independently wealthy
individuals able to fund their racing efforts.
In an interview with BBC 5 Live’s Jennie Gow prior to his second run at
Le Mans in 2013, he summed it up thusly:
‘You’re competing with drivers who have been doing this
since they were young boys and young girls, so they have a lot more experience
and seat time. And seat time I think
ultimately gives you… it’s instinctual.
You don’t think about it anymore.
And sometimes a driver like myself doesn’t have that. There’s a delay… that’s the crossover. (With seat time) you can develop that, and
you start to just live and breathe the car.
But that takes time. And that
takes money.’
That’s what’s so impressive – the fact that these young
drivers, without the lifelong experience of their traditionally educated
rivals, are keeping pace with the professionals.
Ultimately Nissan is the same as any manufacturer – it wants
to win races. But unlike other
manufacturers, they’re willing to think laterally and try untested
methods. And in this instance at least they've given motorsport a refreshing splash of egalitarianism.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get down to the High
Street to get myself a PlayStation.
