THE first time Jann Mardenborough sat behind the wheel of a racing car in 2011, his only experience of being on a track was in a video game.
The teenager had failed his driving test for being too hesitant and he had only tried out a go-kart at a friend’s birthday.
Yet, aged just 19, he found himself clocking 185mph around Silverstone’s Grand Prix circuit as he competed for the chance to be a professional racer.
Now the story of how he won Nissan’s innovative GT Academy programme to transform young PlayStation talents into motor racing stars has inspired a Hollywood film, Gran Turismo.
Starring Orlando Bloom, Stranger Things star David Harbour and Geri Halliwell, it tells how Jann overcame the odds — and a horrific crash — to prove that gamers can earn a place on a real race circuit’s starting grid.
Out of all Nissan’s Academy graduates, Jann, now 31, rose the highest and stayed in the sport the longest.
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He reached the podium in the gruelling Le Mans 24-hour race, won in Formula 3 and was signed by Formula 1 team Red Bull’s chief Christian Horner.
Jann, who grew up in Ely, Cardiff — which was hit by riots after the fatal crash of two schoolboys on an electric bike in May — showed that he could keep up with the rich kids who dominate the sport.
The traditional way into racing is via go-karting, often starting at the age of six, but it costs around £200,000 a year to compete at European level.
Big chance
Since the GT Academy closed in 2016 most youngsters can only dream of being on the winners’ podium.
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Current top Formula 1 driver Max Verstappen’s dad Jos is a former F1 driver too and Jann,, who loved cars from a young age, says: “There is zero way for a normal, regular person to enter motorsports at a level I have competed at without a competition like GT Academy. It doesn’t exist.
“They could find somebody with the talent of Verstappen, but we don’t know who it is, as they don’t have the opportunity.”
In the beginning, for Jann — played in the film by Archie Madekwe — it was a challenge simply to be allowed to use his PlayStation.
He started gaming well before you could earn a living from electronic sports — better known as esports — so his mum Lesley and dad Steve, an ex-journeyman footballer who played for Cardiff City and Wolves, did not approve of his obsession.
Jann says: “They would turn the internet off during those times when I would ignore them.”
His big chance for real racing glory came after businessman Darren Cox dreamed up the idea of putting the best Gran Turismo game players into actual high-powered vehicles.
Starting in 2008, those with the fastest virtual track times could go on to spend a week at Silverstone competing to see who could handle the life-and-death speeds of real racing.
Jann had to wait three years for his chance, because contestants had to be over 18 and have a driving licence.
He only passed his test at the second attempt, and recalls: “I failed the first one because I was too hesitant on a roundabout. I don’t know why, it just happened. It’s a black mark.”
There was no such hesitancy when he won a place at the Academy, beating 90,000 other PlayStation fans.
He recalls: “My first time driving on the motorway was to the GT Academy finals and I wasn’t sure if the car would make it.
“I’d never driven on a track, I’d never driven a car over 135 horsepower. All I had was Gran Turismo.”
Suddenly he found himself putting on a helmet and climbing into a 485-horsepower Nissan GT-R sports car, competing with 11 other finalists at the Silverstone circuit in Northants.
He recalls: “I was just overwhelmed by adrenalin. I’m doing 185mph down the Wellington Straight. It’s the fastest I had ever gone in my life and it was painful for me to think about going home and never experiencing this again.”
Unlike in a computer game, there is no reset button if you smash up a real car that can do 200mph, but Jann knew that being cautious could only result in defeat.
He says: “You have to go over the limit, and that means crashing.
“The reason people do karting at six years old is that you can go off the track and tune that feeling, so that when they jump in the car they know where the limit is. I didn’t have that.”
But despite being up against drivers who all had some race track experience, Jann managed to win.
Two weeks later he moved to Northampton to join a development programme, which included a tough fitness regime coupled with psychological testing.
At his first proper competition outside the academy he experienced a backlash against “sim racers” — those whose experience is limited to simulated racing — with one arrogant driver telling Jann to let him pass.
The top racer told the newcomer: “If you see me in your mirrors, don’t fight me, let me go.”
Jann recalls: “That didn’t happen because the guy was in my mirrors.”
In his first season in the British GT Championships he achieved three podium finishes, including one win, and the British Racing Drivers’ Club awarded him Rising Star status.
The following year he finished third in the legendary Le Mans race and in 2014 Christian Horner signed Jann to his Arden International GP3 team.
By then his mum Lesley had a lot more to worry about than the risk of Jann becoming addicted to computer gaming.
He rolled one car in the Netherlands in 2012 and a year later another racer’s car was sent flying into the air after clipping the front wing of Jann’s vehicle.
He tried his best to reassure his parents, and recalls: “I remember sitting at the dinner table, telling them the cars have roll cages, we have fire proof underwear, fireproof socks.
“That did bring her down a little bit. I was going racing regardless, even if you say no, but it gave me a feeling to know my mother was calm when she saw me on the screen when something terrible happened.” And in March 2015 something terrible did happen at Germany’s Nurburgring Grand Prix race track — nicknamed The Green Hell by three times F1 champion Sir Jackie Stewart.
As Jann came over the brow of a hill, a gust of wind lifted the front end of his car off the Tarmac. His Nissan GT-R somersaulted through the air, bouncing several times, then cleared the safety fence.
Tragically, one spectator was killed as the car landed on a high bank.
Jann was flown to hospital by helicopter, but his injuries were not found to be life-threatening. However, finding out someone had died in the crash was tough, and he recalls: “You are there, you are lonely — it’s dark, it’s very dark.”
Jann has never seen footage of the fatal crash and didn’t watch the scene in the movie.
He says: “I couldn’t watch it, I have never seen it.
“It’s uncomfortable, I know exactly what happened. It’s not so easy, but it needs to be in there.”
Race officials decided Jann was not to blame for the incident and within a week his team told their star to get back in a car.
In the movie Geri Halliwell — the real-life wife of Christian Horner — plays Jann’s mum Lesley, and she impressed both mother and son with her portrayal, especially the crash scene where Lesley reacts to the sight of her son coming close to death.
Jann says of his mum: “She loved it. She had her phone number and they would be speaking regularly. Geri would want to know how I would act in this situation.
“Everybody knows Geri Halliwell, but now she is playing my mum. It’s weird, it’s so crazy, so far-fetched.
“She did it perfectly. She nailed it.”
Today Jann is still in the race game, most recently taking Nissans round hairpin bends in Japan. He says: “I have got a long time left in the tank.”
And he thinks the movie should persuade motorsport’s money men to give more ordinary kids like him a chance to get revved up on the Grand Prix race track.
He says: “I hope the Gran Turismo movie will inspire some private money, whether it be manufacturers or big multinational companies.
“If they want to change motorsport, make it more accessible, you have to start there.
“I’m a product of the GT Academy and Nissan and Sony took a big risk back then.
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“It’s proof that it works — there’s my career, a movie, the proof of what I achieved.”
- Gran Turismo: Based On A True Story is in cinemas from Wednesday.
Source: Motorsport - thesun.co.uk
