Belgian Wolfgang Riep is GT Academy 2012 Europe Winner

Wolfgang Riep, a 25-year-old student from Lachutel, Belgium, was selected as the winner of the 2013 Nissan GT Academy at Silverstone over the weekend. Over 830,000 people from the Europe region participated in the competition this year. Riep will begin racing with Nissan next weekend to begin to learn more and be eligible to compete with the previous GT Academy winners in the 24 Hours of Dubai in a 370Z GT4Nissan 370ZJapan, 2008 > 201226 versions
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. Riep's win was announced during the WEC Six Hours of Silverstone weekend. 

The winner was decided by having the final six competitors race around Silverstone in the 370Zs. Riep won. The race took place in the win. He and second-place finisher Italian Andrea Cosaro were close in the race. Cosaro briefly passed Riep, but Riep was able to get him back. 

"This is the most amazing day of my life. It is incredible, just incredible. I cried on the podium because there was so much emotion. It has been such a long week. There were so many different challenges and so much to learn and experience. To come out at the end of it as the winner, out of so many people who took part on Gran Turismo is just unbelievable," said Riep. 

The GT Academy Race Camp began on August 20 where the 36 fastest drivers were invited to compete for the title. The field was reduced to six over the course of the week through a series of competitions. 

Previous winners of GT Academy Lucas Ordonez, Jordan Tresson and Jann Mardenborough were on hand at Silverstone to coach and evaluate the entrants. Ordonez and Tresson both race LMP2 cars in the WEC and European Le Mans Series. Mardenborough races a Nissan GT-RNissan GT-R Nismo GT3Japan, 2012 > present1 photo
in the Blancpain Endurance Series and British GT Championship. 

For this year, GT Academy is separated into four regions: Europe, Germany, Russia and North America. 

The series is separated into three parts. First, players compete in the GT Academy challenges in the Gran Turismo 5 videogame. The top 32 qualifiers from each country are sent to the national finals to race in real cars. Then the top drivers from there are sent to the final to decide who is the best.