NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / New Zealand

GT Academy - From PlayStation to podium

By Giles Richards
Observer·
4 May, 2012 05:30 PM6 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

The 2011 Gran Turismo Academy winner Jann Mardenborough (left) shares the limelight with winners from previous years Jordan Tresson (2010) and (right) Lucas Ordonez (2008). Photo / Supplied

The 2011 Gran Turismo Academy winner Jann Mardenborough (left) shares the limelight with winners from previous years Jordan Tresson (2010) and (right) Lucas Ordonez (2008). Photo / Supplied

The Gran Turismo Academy has used video games to find a new generation of top drivers

Jann Mardenborough grew up dreaming of driving racing cars. It was an infatuation that began with the gift of a Matchbox toy as a baby, but which he pursued with such quiet intensity that even his father Steve discovered only a year ago that motor racing - not football - was Jann's first love.

Jann was quiet. To his mother Lesley-Anne he was "not particularly outgoing and quite a home boy". Often too shy to answer the front door, he'd spend time in his bedroom, where he played video games.

Yet this reserved, awkward teenager from Cardiff in Wales had a big surprise in store for his parents.

At 8, Jann thought he might have a chance of making it as a racing driver. Steve, an ex-professional footballer, had taken him to a kart circuit, and before long the owner took notice and told Steve his son was a natural.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

But finance proved the stumbling block. The local track closed, and the nearest alternative was across the border in Bristol, southwest England, about 70km away.

"I stopped when I was 11," said Jann, "because it got too expensive."

He returned to his bedroom, where he took to the next best thing - virtual racing on the video game Gran Turismo. It was the perfect release for the racing-obsessed teen: a singular pursuit offering a test of individual skill in which he could lose himself.

"One day," said Steve, "he came downstairs and said, 'Dad, I've qualified.' I said: 'Qualified for what?"'

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

In the middle of last year, Jann, then 19, entered an online competition on Gran Turismo 5 that offered a shot at the real thing.

Out of 90,000 other virtual racers, he made it into the top eight in Europe and won the chance to test himself against other gamers in a real car at Brands Hatch racing track near London. That he had kept it to himself for so long was entirely in character for a boy who did not like to make a fuss.

"At that point we had no idea what it was," admitted Steve.

Seven months later, in January this year, Jann, who'd never set foot in a racing car, was at the wheel of a serious piece of kit in the Dubai 24 Hour race - and at the beginning of what appears to be a very exciting career.

Discover more

Technology

Game review: <i>Sniper Elite V2</i>

15 May 02:30 AM
New Zealand

GT: the tracks of our years

10 May 05:30 PM

The video-game franchise in which Jann began his journey, Sony's Gran Turismo, was originally designed by Japan's Kazunori Yamauchi in 1997.

Gran Turismo stood out for its quest to mirror a physical rather than fantastical reality. This was a racing "simulator" and its success (more than 60 million sales worldwide) owed everything to how well it measures up to the real thing.

Its sports cars may be virtual creations, yet everything about them was designed to behave as closely as possible to the genuine article.

The level of accuracy now available in computer modelling meant Formula One drivers, as a matter of course, do laps on simulators in preparation for races. Lewis Hamilton himself admitted to learning tracks during his rookie F1 year playing PlayStation with his brother.

Sensing a marketing opportunity, Sony teamed up with Nissan to form the GT Academy in 2008. It was a one-off project created to answer a simple question: could you take a gamer and put them in a real racing car?

A 23-year-old Spaniard, Lucas Ordonez, won the online and then real-world challenge. After intensive training, he raced as one of a team of drivers in the 2009 Dubai 24.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The programme was extended to see if this unorthodox method could uncover further talent. French gamer Jordan Tresson won a GT Academy place in 2010 and Ordonez himself went on to race for the professional Signature Nissan team, taking a podium at sports car racing's most important meeting, the Le Mans 24 Hours, last year.

From this came the concept of a car driven only by computer gamers entering this year's Dubai 24.

Two new candidates were needed to be brought up to speed and the academy opened its online competition again. Which was how Jann found it.

The transition from computer-generated racing to hard, cold, dangerous steel ought to be difficult yet for Jann it was instinctive: "It felt completely normal," he said.

How to read racing lines - correct entrances and exits to corners; hand-eye co-ordination and a visual sense, plus the ability to look ahead of the car into breaking zones, had all been learned in the bedroom.

He passed the test at Brands Hatch and later, at Silverstone, beat 11 other finalists to the place as a GT Academy driver.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"My mouth was hurting because I was grinning from ear to ear so much," Jann said.

He was placed on a driver-development programme at Silverstone and in six months he and the winner of the US GT Academy, Bryan Heitkotter, gained their international racing licences, a process that normally takes three years.

The gamers were young, malleable and without ego. Even the lack of racing experience had a positive side-effect. Jann's mentor Rob Jenkinson, a former racer himself, was sceptical of the academy concept but became convinced after seeing it in action.

He said that drivers entering through the traditional route have longer to pick up bad habits, sometimes taking years to correct. "With this, in six months we eliminate mistakes," he said. "We make good decisions on their behalf immediately."

What cannot be eliminated is the danger. Accidents now mean more than just hitting the restart button.

"I know there's a dangerous side to it, but it didn't really cross my mind," said Jann, despite having rolled the car at a race in Holland.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

In Dubai, at the MotorCity circuit, Jann is ready for the 24 Hour race. He shares with Hamilton not only the sculpted good looks but the calm self-assurance the McLaren driver displays.

There's no sign of the shy teenager. Motor racing is all about focus, and before he stepped into the car Mardenborough had it in spades.

For the first part of the race, the crew and drivers were struggling with mechanical gremlins.

Each team raced flat-out stints interspersed with furiously quick pit stops, looking to eke out tiny advantages that over a full 24 hours can make the difference.

With an hour and a half to go, one driving stint remained and in third place, Neville chose Jann to take the wheel. Having raced so hard for so long, a mistake at this stage would be heartbreaking. The pressure was immense. But Jann brought the car home with ease and the team made the podium.

"When I was 17 or so I was afraid to answer the phone," he said, "I've come a huge, long way."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

His mother calls it a "fairy story". Just over two weeks after the race Nissan confirmed Jann as its fulltime driver for the season in the Blancpain Endurance Series - a full-scale, six-race, professional racing competition that visits some of the most famous circuits in Europe. It might be the start of something great.

- The Observer

Save

    Share this article

Latest from New Zealand

live
New Zealand

Storm leaves 13,000 without power in Tasman

11 Jul 08:18 AM
New Zealand|crime

'S*** happens': Injured motorcyclist's gracious response to being hit by car

11 Jul 08:00 AM
Politics

Peeni Henare likely favourite to stand for Labour in Tāmaki Makaurau byelection

11 Jul 07:20 AM

From early mornings to easy living

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Recommended for you
Storm leaves 13,000 without power in Tasman
New Zealand

Storm leaves 13,000 without power in Tasman

11 Jul 08:18 AM
'S*** happens': Injured motorcyclist's gracious response to being hit by car
New Zealand

'S*** happens': Injured motorcyclist's gracious response to being hit by car

11 Jul 08:00 AM
O’Connor returns as Wallabies prepare for British and Irish Lions
Sport

O’Connor returns as Wallabies prepare for British and Irish Lions

11 Jul 07:56 AM
‘Honour’ murder: Father kills daughter over TikTok account
World

‘Honour’ murder: Father kills daughter over TikTok account

11 Jul 07:51 AM
'Challenging conditions': Luxury retail giant DFS closing Kiwi stores
Retail

'Challenging conditions': Luxury retail giant DFS closing Kiwi stores

11 Jul 07:43 AM

Latest from New Zealand

Storm leaves 13,000 without power in Tasman
live

Storm leaves 13,000 without power in Tasman

11 Jul 08:18 AM

High winds are ramping up.

'S*** happens': Injured motorcyclist's gracious response to being hit by car

'S*** happens': Injured motorcyclist's gracious response to being hit by car

11 Jul 08:00 AM
Peeni Henare likely favourite to stand for Labour in Tāmaki Makaurau byelection

Peeni Henare likely favourite to stand for Labour in Tāmaki Makaurau byelection

11 Jul 07:20 AM
Watch: 'My raging backyard river' - North Shore homeowner fears stormwater torrent

Watch: 'My raging backyard river' - North Shore homeowner fears stormwater torrent

11 Jul 06:00 AM
Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP
search by queryly Advanced Search