India-Edition of Nissan GT Academy: 6 Finalists Head to Silverstone

Nissan's GT Academy is a very exciting and innovative concept that aims to help regular guys who're possessed by the racing bug in realizing their dream of making it big in the motorsport circus. It puts a simulation racer / gamer in the hot seat of a work's racing machine.

Nissan, after launching this initiative in other developed and emerging markets globally, introduced the concept to the Indian online community of gamers. Nissan shortlisted twenty eight guys from a reported entry list of five thousand and invited them for the finals where six of the best were selected after a series of tests. Now, little did we know that the ever-chirpy Abhinav from NDTV's news team would be the first of the six finalists - the five others were Abhinay Bikkani, Prakash Nair, Akshay Gupta, Glen Ivan Suchita and Karl Patel.

So you'd say job well done! But hang on, these chaps deserve much more - they are heading off to Silverstone in August to battle against other groups of simulation racers who've made it from other countries. That's a huge deal!

Essentially, the first day was about lapping a couple of circuits on their simulation consoles and the second day involved real-word driving (the car being a petrol Micra) on - weirdly - a track laid out on polo grounds in Jaipur. It was followed with a demanding physical training exercise as well.

It's a very noble effort by Nissan, and just giving these obsessed guys an opportunity to battle it out with the trained race car drivers is worthy of many compliments.