Gran Turismo Gamers Banned From Real-Life Racing For Being Too Fast

Nissan’s GT Academy has demonstrated that, given the right amount of training, gifted gamers can make wholly capable professional racing drivers. However, the British GT Championship has dealt this year’s hopefuls a blow by banning them from competing in the series. Why? Because they’re simply too fast.

Let me explain. 20 year-old 2012 GT Academy winner Jann Mardenborough and his teammate - experienced racer Alex Buscombe - came dangerously close to winning the British GT’s Pro-Am category last year. The point of the Pro-Am title is that it’s only open to non-professional gentlemen racers, who possess neither the speed nor the experience of the professionals. And yet Mardenborough, a teen’ who got his international racing license in only six months (a process that typically takes three years), was among the fastest. Big respect.

Mardenborough was an awkward teenager, who spent much of his free time on his Playstation. Such is the level of realism that’s been achieved by titles like Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsports - Mardenborough was already a natural by the time he found himself behind the wheel of a real car.

This is all well and good, but remember motorsport still exists outside of the professional series. Today’s drivers honed their skills in karting for decades before progressing onto feeder series such as Formula Ford and Ginetta Juniors. If team bosses can simply pluck kids who have topped the online leader-boards straight from their bedrooms, what incentive is left to work your way to the top? Is this the peak of a slippery slope heading towards the end for grassroots motorsports? And is that really a bad thing if the Playstation generation are that much faster?

There are aspects of performance driving that a commercially available simulator will never be able to replicate; cornering forces and the tangible sense of weight-transfer to name but two. However 'real' a developer claims to have made its title, it will never match the feeling of driving a real car. Yet - what remains to be seen is whether such programs as the GT Academy will have an effect on the type of racing we’ll be watching in a few years time.

There is no such thing as being 'too fast to race'. Let's hope this years GT Academy entrants get the opportunity to show us what they can really do.