Limerick man wins GT Academy

Posted by Kevin in Featured, Sony | 1 comment

It's ok to drink if it's only virtual driving. GT Champagne makes you go faster anyway...

Limerick gamer, Daniel Collins from Rathkeale, drove his way to victory to become Ireland’s GT Academy 2010 Champion this weekend. Thirty one year old Collins beat the top 20 fastest gamers in the country at a live gaming event in Dublin on Saturday 13th February and will now represent Ireland in the grand final in Silverstone, UK, at the end of the month. With a fastest lap time of 1:38.599, Collins held out to win the overall title, beating stiff competition in the process.

GT Academy, a joint collaboration between PlayStation 3 and Nissan, launched last December and set out to unearth a real racing driver from the virtual world of the hugely successful Gran Turismo racing game. Collins was one of over ten thousand Irish gamers who downloaded the GT Academy Time Trial onto their PlayStation 3 console and completed and posted their fastest lap times in an attempt to make it through to the national final. The top 20 finalists came from throughout the country and had to race each other on a selection of GT race tracks to determine the overall winner.

As Ireland’s national champion, Collins will attend an intensive week long training camp in Silverstone at the end of February to compete for one of just two places in the final stage of the competition. If successful, he will remain at Silverstone for a further 8 weeks to attain his International Racing Licence. One lucky driver will then go on to race a full season as part of the Nissan team in the European GT4 Cup in a Nissan 370Z car. GT Academy 2009 changed the life of Spanish student Lucas Ordonez who entered the competition and emerged a fully fledged member of the Nissan race team.

Commenting on the final, Niall O’Hanrahan, Managing Director Sony Computer Entertainment Ireland, said: “We would like to congratulate Daniel on winning the national final and becoming the GT Academy 2010 Irish champion. He beat the fastest gamers in the country to win the competition and we wish him all the very best as he goes on to represent Ireland in Silverstone”.

Good luck to Daniel in the finals. Despite being from Limerick he managed to keep his hands away from the knife and win the competition fairly.