- FANS AT LE MANS WILL BE TREATED TO THE NISMO FANZONE, A CENTRE OF INNOVATION AND EXCITEMENT AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE TO ACCESS
- THE EYES OF THE MOTORSPORT WORLD ARE ABOUT TO TURN TO LE MANS AND, JUST LIKE LAST YEAR, NISSAN WILL PROVIDE A GREAT DEAL FOR ALL TO SEE WITH AN EMPHASIS ON PUTTING THE #FANSFIRST
June 20, 2013.- After the experiences of the Nissan DeltaWing, dubbed the world’s first social media car, Nissan saw how passionate the fans of sportscar racing are, especially when it comes to innovation. At the 2013 Le Mans 24 Hours, Nissan will open its doors to the fans with the ‘Nismo FanZone’, and take the unprecedented step of revealing the 2014 Garage 56 entry to the fans at Le Mans, before anyone else sees it.
ELECTRIFYING LE MANS: 2014 GARAGE 56 ENTRY TO BE REVEALED
Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn announced in February that Nissan would return to Le Mans in 2014 in Garage 56 with a car that focused on innovation and excitement. At 10:30am on Friday 21 June Nissan will reveal its 2014 Garage 56 entry and it’s hopes for an LM P1 future.
GT ACADEMY CREATING NEW GENERATION OF RACERS
For the last five years GT Academy has given anyone with a PlayStation the opportunity to become a racing driver. The first winner, Lucas Ordonez, realised his dream of racing at Le Mans in 2011 whereupon he took an incredible podium finish at his first attempt. Lucas’ ‘Lounge to Le Mans’ story stole the headlines two years ago and next week Lucas returns to France to take part in his third Le Mans 24 Hours.
The 2013 rookie is Jann Mardenborough, winner of GT Academy in 2011. After completing a season racing the Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3, during which he almost won the British GT Championship, Jann has been thrown in at the deep end this year as he is racing in the FIA European Formula 3 Championship. Formula 3 has given Jann an intense education in racing cars with downforce. He is now ready to apply all that he has learnt to racing the Greaves Motorsport Zytek-Nissan. Jann didn’t end the 2012 season laden down with awards and accolades for nothing and it will be a proud moment for the team at Nissan to witness his participation at Le Mans this year.
The four 2013 GT Academy graduates (Wolfgang Reip, Mark Shulzhitskiy, Peter Pyzera and Steve Doherty) are all racing the Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 this year but they are still getting a taste of Le Mans as they will come to the event to give fans an insight into life as a Nismo Athlete in the Nismo FanZone.
EXCITEMENT FOR FANS IN THE NISMO FANZONE
This year the fans at Le Mans will have the chance to fully immerse themselves in the Nismo experience. As well as a chance to see the drivers of the No.42 Greaves Motorsport and No.26 G-Drive Racing cars the fans can enter competitions to win helicopter rides, garage tours, circuit tours and numerous other giveaways throughout the event.
A unique feature of the Nismo FanZone is the Nismo Lab. This is a copy of the training lab used by the Nismo Athletes where fans can discover how fit they are and if they are one of the lucky ones they can try their hand in the driver training simulator. The Nismo Athletes currently racing in the FIA GT and Blancpain Endurance Series will be on hand to demonstrate all of the functions of the lab which also has machines to measure fitness, reaction times and even brain waves!
Fans will also be able to see how the Nismo Athletes are coping on track as the ground-breaking Juke Ride biometrics system will be running in the Nismo Lab.
There will be live PlayStation pod racing on stage every day and, for French fans, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to win a place in the French National Finals of GT Academy 2013.
If that’s not enough, the Ministry of Sound DJ Des Paul will keep the party going in the Nismo FanZone every evening thanks to the awesome Nismo Sound Systems.
The Nismo FanZone will open in the new karting area at Le Mans from Thursday afternoon onwards. Follow @Nissan_OnTrack on Twitter for updates and use the hashtag #nismo.
NISSAN POWER IS THE TOP CHOICE AT LE MANS
Nissan’s LM P2 customer engine programme has gone from strength-to-strength over the last three years. In 2013 a staggering 15 out of 22 LM P2 cars will be powered by the Nismo-tuned Nissan VK45DE V8 engine. So far in the 2013 FIA World Endurance Championship Nissan has dominated the LM P2 class, taking the top eight positions at Silverstone and the top six at Spa. Add this to two victories in the first two rounds of the European Le Mans Series and it becomes apparent why so many teams opted to be powered by Nissan.
The No.42 Greaves Motorsport Zytek Nissan is likely to be a favourite of the fans as Nismo Ambassador and Super GT racer, Michael Krumm joins Lucas Ordonez and Jann Mardenborough. The three team-mates are all very fast but very patient drivers who know how to play the endurance game.
Nissan’s Official Partner Team, G-Drive Racing, is also one to watch. Already winners in 2013 the Russian team is going all out for the Le Mans win. Russia’s Roman Rusinov will race the No.26 Oreca Nissan with Australian John Martin and Britain’s Mike Conway. This is another very strong line up that will be hard to beat.
With such a large proportion of the LM P2 class powered by Nissan it is set for another battle that will go all the way, flat out to the flag.
NISSAN & NISMO
Nissan benefits from one of the most comprehensive European presences of any overseas manufacturer, employing more than 14,500 staff across locally-based design, research & development, manufacturing, logistics and sales & marketing operations.
Last year Nissan plants in the UK, Spain and Russia produced 677,000 vehicles, offering 24 diverse and innovative products for sale in Europe today.
Nismo is Nissan’s performance division. It develops and engineers advanced technology and design to deliver exciting driving experiences for our customers. Nismo is also the brand name for the performance line-up.
With Nismo, Nissan aims to create the most accessible automotive performance brand for exhilarating driving experiences every day.
Nismo is the ultimate demonstration of the Nissan brand – Innovation and Excitement for Everyone
Nismo provides real-world examples of Nissan’s ability to be the most Innovative & Exciting company in the world
A range of Nismo road cars will be introduced in Europe – the Juke Nismo was the first.
Juke Nismo benefits from engineering innovation and experienced honed on the track and brought to the road
GT ACADEMY
GT Academy was described by EVO magazine in December 2012 as ‘unquestionably the world’s most accessible driver scholarship’.
GT Academy is a competition created by Nissan and PlayStation that unites the worlds of virtual and real-life racing to make the dreams of aspiring racing drivers a reality. The competition finds the best Gran Turismo players from across the participating countries by testing their skills in an online, gaming qualification process. They then compete against each other in live territory finals before the winners from each final switch to driving real Nissan cars at the now-famous Silverstone ‘Race Camp’. The overall winner of each GT Academy competition is then trained via Nissan’s Driver Development Programme to race for real.
GT Academy 2013 will be the biggest yet, with more countries than ever before participating and the online gaming element of the competition set to be run in July on a demo of the hotly-anticipated Gran Turismo 6 game.
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Text, Photograph and video: Nissan
