Jann Mardenborough Attacks The Goodwood Hill Before Talking GT Academy And Le Mans

Jann Mardenborough is living the dream. He turned a hobby playing Gran Turismo into a genuine racing career, and he’s clearly enjoying life in the race seat. We joined the GT Academy winner in a sauna-like Nissan X-Trail to chat about life with Nissan, and how he ended up going from playing in his living room to racing on the biggest stage at Le Mans.

The car we went up the hill in was the Nissan Juke-R 2.0, which is essentially a GT-R Nismo with a Juke body on top. That means 592bhp from a 3.8-litre twin-turbo V6. Its performance is suitably mad, and while we were queuing for our turn, quite a few drivers approached us with genuine intrigue about the car.

You’ll also be pleased to know he still plays Gran Turismo, though he said he only plays online and chooses the slowest possible car to see if he can still win!

Make sure you check out our previous interview with Jann, which took place the day before the Le Mans 24 Hours.