OREANDA-NEWS. July 17, 2015. Following two intense days of competition at the U.S. 2015 Nissan GT Academy Finals in Nashville, six gamers will soon be one giant step closer to becoming Nissan’s next professional race car driver.

The 20 best U.S. Gran Turismo online gamers took part in virtual races, fitness challenges, skill testing and on-track racing today and Tuesday, and judges are tallying the scores this evening to determine the finalists.

The names of the six finalists will be announced tomorrow, July 16, at 1 p.m. ET/12 p.m. CT on NissanNews.com. Video reports, b-roll and photography of this week’s U.S. 2015 Nissan GT Academy Finals will also be available on NissanNews.com at this time.

The six chosen finalists will move on to represent the United States during the global championships next month at the legendary Silverstone Raceway in the United Kingdom, where the next GT Academy champion will be crowned.

About GT Academy 2015
GT Academy is a collaboration between PlayStation® and Nissan that uses the virtual world of the Gran Turismo®6 game to unearth real-world racing talent. Now in its seventh year, GT Academy includes separate competitions for Europe (France, Italy, UK, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Hungary, Poland and Czech Republic), International group (Australia, Mexico, North Africa, Turkey and United States) and Asia (India, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Japan).

From National Finals, the action moves onto the legendary Race Camp, where the competitors are put through their paces on track in Nissan sports cars under the watchful eyes of high profile judges and mentors. Winners from each competition will be invited to take part in the intensive Driver Development Program, where they have the opportunity to qualify for an international race license and race for Nissan professionally.

Previous winners of GT Academy are now regular racing drivers. In 2015, Jann Mardenborough (UK, winner in 2011) is racing in the World Endurance Championship for Nissan in the top LM P1 category and in GP3, a feeder series to Formula One, with the championship-winning Carlin team. Lucas Ordo?ez (Spain, winner in 2008) will be racing in the Le Mans 24 Hours this year in the Nisan GT-R LM NISMO LMP1 entry, alongside Mardenborough. The 2014 Champions, Gaetan Paletou (Europe) and Ricardo Sanchez (International) are competing in the Blancpain Endurance Series with the Nissan GT Academy Team RJN.