A lineup of GT Academy winners on BES

After the announcement that Nissan GT Academy Team RJN will compete in the Pro Cup of the Blancpain Endurance Series in 2015, it was confirmed that a second Nissan GT-R GT3 will compete in the Pro-Am Cup, as the team does every season. What’s not usual is that the lineup will feature only GT Academy graduates onboard the Godzila.

2014 winners Gaetan Paletou and Ricardo Sanchez will have the company of 2013 graduate Florian Strauss. All drivers have good results to show despite pretty short racing carrers.

Paletou and Sanchez were driving alongside Florian Strauss in their debut race in the Dubai 24 Hours in January, as their Nissan GT-R that also had 2014 winners Ahmed Bin Khanen and Nicolas Hammann finished fifth overall and second in the A6-Am class.

Strauss was also part of the lineup that conquered the Bathurst 12 Hours in February, alongside Wolfgang Reip and Katsumasa Chiyo, drivers of RJN’s Pro lineup. Curiously, the third driver of the BES Pro lineup and GT Academy counselor, Alex Buncombe, was replaced by Strauss a few days before the race, as Buncombe went back home to see the birth of his first son. Strauss recent achivements put him as the ‘pro’ driver of the trio.

The choice of Strauss, Paletou and Sanchez will mark the first time in BES since the 2013 Spa 24 Hours that a car will have only GT Academy graduates, as Lucas Ordoñez, Jann Mardenborough, Peter Pyzera and Wolfgang Reip finished with the No. 35 Nissan in seventh overall and third in the Pro-Am Cup on that race.

PHOTOS: JRM Group, Nissan GT Academy, Blancpain GT Series