The online gaming element of the competition gets under starter’s orders this July via a demo of the just-announced Gran Turismo 6 exclusively on PlayStation 3.

Since it began in 2008, the acclaimed virtual-to-reality competition has attracted over two million entries, with gamers and motor sport fans battling it out in Gran Turismo for the chance to become real Nissan racing drivers. Six former winners of the competition, which now runs in Europe, the USA, Germany, Russia, the Middle East and South Africa, are now Nismo Athletes competing in top-level motor sport on behalf of Nissan.

Nissan’s Director of Global Motorsport, Darren Cox, revealed the plans for GT Academy 2013 today at the famous Silverstone Circuit, at the same event where Kazunori Yamauchi announced Gran Turismo 6.

“At its core GT Academy remains a highly-accessible route into professional motor racing for people who would otherwise not have the opportunity. Unearthing genuine driving talent from the world of gaming is a real example of digital age performance and the innovation for which Nissan is famous.

“We are predicting that more people than ever will enter the competition this year on the stunning new GT6 demo.”

Kazunori Yamauchi, President of developer Polyphony Digital, added: “GT Academy is a fitting platform for the Gran Turismo community to preview GT6 for the first time, as we aim to bring the worlds of virtual and reality closer than ever.

“We are very proud of this partnership with Nissan, and we have aimed to make a very appealing and accessible competition featuring a range of their cars. The challenges, even at this early stage of the competition, are designed to improve people’s race craft before they even make it to driving real cars.

“We have also incorporated the Silverstone circuit for the first time in Gran Turismo. This should ensure that competitors will arrive at Race Camp better prepared than ever.”

Winning GT Academy is a passport to a career in global motorsport, with Lucas Ordoñez (2008 winner) and Jann Mardenborough (2011 winner) racing at the 2013 Le Mans 24 Hours for Nissan Nismo.

The latest graduates Wolfgang Reip from Belgium (European winner), Mark Shulzhitskiy (Russian winner), Steve Doherty (US winner) and Peter Pyzera (German winner) are currently competing in the Blancpain Endurance Series in a pair of Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 cars.

The format of GT Academy sees the fastest PlayStation gamers from each country join winners from a number of live events to compete in their respective National Finals. The action will then make the transition from the virtual world to real Nissan sports cars when the winners of each national competition are invited to take part in the intense international final at Silverstone Circuit, now the established home of the GT Academy Race Camp.

The winners of each of the GT Academy competitions will then be put through an intensive and thorough Driver Development Program, rated among the best in the world, in order to qualify for the ultimate competition prize – a full season racing a Nissan GT-R GT3 Nismo in a top-level championship.

Details of how to enter GT Academy 2013 can be found on Facebook, Twitter and the official Gran Turismo site. Good luck!

Nissan GT Academy is back for a second season, seeking to determine which of America’s best Gran Turismo players has what it takes to become a professional racing driver.

The first of the six-part episode will air on Spike TV beginning Thursday, November 1st at 11:30pm Pacific Time . The remaining episodes will air at the same time each Thursday night and will be available on the Nissan YouTube channel the following Monday. GT Academy will also be screened on MTV2, one week after the original airdate on SPIKE TV. For a preview, visit GTAcademy.com.

In July, after three months of online competition, the top 32 out of 400,000 registered Gran Turismo online gamers met at Comic-Con in San Diego to determine the 16 finalists for GT Academy 2012. After two days of virtual racing competition on identical gaming sleds, the fastest 16 were invited to the legendary Silverstone Racing complex in England to begin an intense boot camp that combined physical and psychological challenges in addition to on-track driving in a variety of performance vehicles.

The six-week GT Academy 2012 television series, hosted by ex-NFL player Dhani Jones will capture every challenge and all of the human drama of a very intense week. At the end of each episode, competitors’ performances are evaluated and critiqued by pro racers Danny Sullivan, Maryeve Dufault, and Boris Said. Those who don’t make the cut go home. One winner emerges and remains in the UK to undergo intensive professional racing training that will qualify them to earn their international competition license.