Gran Turismo champ wins first real race in Nissan's GT4 racing team

Posted by Adam Bunker on Thu 27 Aug 2009

Speedy online racer wins first real life race

Gaming has long been seen as an entirely useless pastime, incapable of preparing you for real life situations. Indeed, the nine million hours we pumped into Super Mario as kids taught us nothing about the complicated world of plumbing. Similarly, time spent cultivating friendships on The Sims has left us unable to comfort our loved ones if their problems run any deeper than adult incontinence or the unquenchable need to dance.

All that’s changed now, though, as one gamer’s tireless practice at Gran Turismo has lead him to a career in the world of real life racing. Lucas Ordoñez of Spain has become the ‘world’s first virtual to real life racing driver’, having won a competition run jointly by Nissan and Playstation.

25,00 gamers over 12 European countries battled to record their best lap time on Gran Turismo 5 PrologueT on the Playstation Network; 240 winners were then whittled down to 22 before a rigorous set of challenges deemed Ordoñez the cream of the crop. Racing in a Nissan 350Z for team Nissan in the GT4 race, Ordoñez topped the podium in Zolder, Belgium last weekend.

Nissan Europe’s Darren Cox said of the story: “Whatever happens now in the rest of the season Lucas has proved a big point. His first season of GT racing has delivered a win in an international race series again top line drivers, in top line cars.”

Team boss Bob Neville is looking forward to Ordonez’s future with the team, saying “the main focus is maintaining our second place in the [rest of the] Championship. That would really show everyone that a Playstation gamer can go from bedroom to championship contender in one year.”

As for us, we live in hope that our time spent on Mario Kart and our stockpile of spraypainted tortoise shells will one day prove useful.

Top 50 in-car gadgets everyone should own

T3’s guide to pimping your motor, but without going all boy-racer neon with it – classy tech for your ultimate machine!

- Launch the gallery

Share this:

User Comments

By freeiphones4u

27|08|2009 13:01

The Free iPhone Guide

To get yourself a free iPhone, iPod Touch, or the latest Macbook Air all you have to do is follow the 3 easy steps:

Step 1 : Sign up for a free Gift
Sign up at the link below to get your free gift. We recommend this free gift site because it's been TRIED and TESTED to work.

http://gifts.kudosnetwork.co.uk/172 (copy and paste into address bar)

You can choose other prizes like free iMacs from this site too! Make sure you use a real email address. Use your real details when you sign up so that the company knows where to send your gift! Remember that they have been proven legitimate, so will send you your free gift if you do everything legitimately!

Step 2 : Try an advertiser's offer
Basically all you need to do in this step is complete one of the offers, this is where the freebie site make their money, if you complete an offer then the freebie site will recieve commission for it. So if you complete Coral which will only cost you £5 to complete, the freebie site gets £25 from Coral. The two best offers are Lovefilm Free DVD rental trial (where you rent any two DVD's for free!) and Coral (bet £5 on a sport). I would reccommend you do Coral as it credits in an hour and is really simple to do, Lovefilm however can become complicated and takes up to 4 weeks to credit! You can also try one of the other offers, most are gambling offers. Don't skip this step! You must complete this step to get your free gift!

Step 3 : Refer some friends

This part is a lot easier than it seems, especially now with free gift sites getting so popular. There's lots of people online who want a free iPhone, Touch or macbook too, so start referring them! You only need to get a few signups before you'll be finished. You can ask your friends or your online buddies. I already got a free iPhone without even having to ask my friends for help - there's lots of people online who want a free iPhone like you! One of the easiest ways to get a referral is to do a favour for a friend and ask them to sign up in return. That way, you both can get a free gift!

Basic rules
Don't break these rules! This is the only reason that you won't get your free gift, so make sure you follow these rules!

- One account per household - don't use a public computer to sign up!
- Use real information - this is a proven legitimate site and they will not give out your information.
- Only complete each offer once! You cannot complete the same offer again, even for different freebies.
- Don't try to cheat the system. This site has been proven legitimate, and they will catch you if you try to cheat. If you do everything legitimately, by following this guide, you will get a free gift!

Thats all, just follow my guide and you will have your free gift in no time.