Miguel Faisca from Lisbon, Portugal, is the 2013 European GT Academy Champion. The 24-year-old gamer took the title by being voted the best driver by the jury of former and current racing drivers who also acted as the competitors’ mentors.  Faisca won a full season racing a NissanNissanJapan, 1932 > present159 models
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GT-R GT3Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3Japan, 2012 > present1 photo
and a year of driver development from Nissan.

To get this far, Faisca first had to be among the fastest in his country of the over 765,000 people who participated in the 2013 European GT Academy. He then had to beat the fastest GT Academy drivers from Portugal at Silverstone. Two Portuguese drivers were selected to be among the 42 drivers to take part in the European GT Academy Championship.

The championship was held over seven days at Silverstone with racing mentors including Johnny Herbert, Rene Arnoux, Stefan Johansson and the previous GT Academy winners. Each day some of the drivers were eliminated and sent home.

On the final day, the last seven drivers repeated a test driving a 370Z NismoNissan 370Z NismoJapan, 2014 > present around Silverstone from the first day to see how far they had come. They then held a three-found knockout race with the top drivers of the first two rounds moving to the final round for an eight-lap race. Faisca won the final race and was voted champion by the racing mentors.

Faisca gets to go home to celebrate for a few weeks and will return to Silverstone in October to train with the winners of GT Academy from Germany, Russia and the United States, which all hold their own separate competitions.

"I didn't expect to win this morning. I don't think I was one of the favourites. But I was feeling good with the car and the track and I quite like the rain conditions. I didn't get a good start and I was second. Once I got into the lead it was very difficult to keep it, but I am so happy. This is the start. It is going to be very hard work, but I can't wait to get going,” said Faisca.

The European GT Academy began in 2008, and Faisca is the contest’s fifth winner. Its biggest success so far has been finding driver Lucas Ordonez who since winning has had a class win in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, raced in series around the world and is test driver for the Nissan ZEOD RC electric racecar prototype.