Nissan GT Academy Winners Ready to Take on Dubai 24 Hours

The winners of Nissan'sNissanJapan, 1932 > present159 models
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GT Academy are about to receive their prize. The grand prize for all of the GT Academy winners worldwide is the opportunity to race in a 370ZNissan 370Z NismoJapan, 2009 > present3 photos
Nismo GT4 in the Dubai 24 Hours, which will be held on January 10-12, 2013. 

The drivers will include the Wolfgang Relp, the 2012 European Region winner, Mark Shulzhitskiy, 2012 Russian Region winner, Peter Pyzera, 2012 German region winner, and Steve Doherty, 2012 US Region winner. The rookies will be split between the two cars and have previous winners joining them. Lucas Ordonez and Roman Rusinov will be in one car, and GT Academy instructors Sabine Schmitz and Alex Buncombe will be in the other car. 

After winning all four new drivers moved to the UK for intensive driver training to get them ready for the Dubai 24 Hours in just a few months time. They raced every weekend and trained in karts and simulators during the week. Nissan also kept them in a nutrition and fitness program. 

"Each year we have developed and refined the Driver Development Program for our GT Academy winners and I firmly believe that it is now the best program in the world. We are absolutely confident that these guys will line up in Dubai better prepared than many of their more experienced adversaries who have taken a more traditional route into motor sport. Lucas, Jordan Tresson and Jann Mardenborough, our previous GT Academy Europe winners, have demonstrated that we are producing great drivers with bright futures," said Darren Cox, head of Nissan Motorsport.