Don't Hate The Player Or The Game

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.