Jann Mardenborough

Nissan’s revolutionary driver discovery and development programme, GT Academy, struck gold in 2011 when it unearthed the raw talent of Jann Mardenborough.

Jann was a student on a gap year when he heard about GT Academy. He knew he was pretty handy with his PS3 but could his skills in the virtual world be transferred just as successfully onto the race track? You bet they could.

Since winning Season Three of GT Academy in June 2011 Jann has proved to be every inch the professional racing driver and one of the most exciting young racing talents to appear in recent years.

The raw talent that caught the eye of the GT Academy judges soon attracted a lot of attention from the motorsport industry. Jann’s speed was such in the British GT Championship that he was given a penalty for being “too fast”. When EVO magazine presented its Emerging Talent award to Jann they said that he was: “blessed with star quality without the swagger, abundant aptitude without the attitude, and the kind of blistering pace that makes you want to weep.”

Jann is the first GT Academy winner to race in single-seaters and in 2014 he became a GP3 race winner with Arden Motorsport, while on the Infiniti Red Bull Racing driver development programme. Away from single-seaters, Jann’s performance in the Ligier-Nissan LM P2 car at the 2014 Le Mans 24 Hours was incredible.

Such is Jann’s talent the motorsport establishment became convinced that he had done a lot of karting as a child. The bad news for them is that he didn’t, in fact he went to his local kart track a total of six times over the course of a year when he was 10 years old.

In 2015 Jann completes the transition from PS3 to P1, becoming one of the first GT Academy winners to race in LM P1 for Nissan.

2014

• GP3 with Arden Motorsport – Took his first win at Hockenheim in July and followed it up with a podium in Hungary
• On intensive driver development program with Infiniti Red Bull Racing
• Le Mans 24 Hours with OAK Racing, alongside Mark Shulzhitskiy and Alex Brundle.
• Competed in the Sebring 12 Hours in the Nissan-powered Pickett Racing LM P2 car.
• Runner up in the New Zealand-based TRS single-seater series

2013

• Raced in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship and the British F3 International Series with Carlin Motorsport. Two podium finishes.
• Raced to a podium finish in the Le Mans 24 Hours in the Greaves Motorsport Zytek-Nissan with Michael Krumm and Lucas Ordonez. Jann travelled to the 2011 Le Mans 24 Hours with his fellow GT Academy finalists, before he won the competition a week after the 2011 race.
• Competed in an all-gamer line-up at the Spa 24 Hours in the No.32 Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 and scored a Pro-Am podium along with Lucas Ordonez, Wolfgang Reip and Peter Pyzera.

2012

• • British GT Championship with Alex Buncombe in the RJN Motorsport Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3. Jann took his first British GT pole position at the Nurburgring in May and he and Alex took the first big win for the Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 at Brands Hatch in the summer. At the final round at Donington Park Jann was leading the race and heading for championship glory when a technical problem dropped him down the order.
• Blancpain Endurance Championship part-season
• Podium finish at Dubai 24 Hours in ‘All-Gamer’ Nissan 370Z
• Awarded Rising Star status by the British Racing Driver’s Club (BRDC)
• Invited to join the MSA Academy
• Winner of EVO magazine’s Emerging Talent award
• Nominated for Club Driver of the Year in Autosport Awards

2011

• • Nissan PlayStation GT Academy Winner (Season 3, Europe, 2011)