Is Gran Turismo based on a true story?
Sony PicturesThe racing movie combines elements of Rocky with bits of Top Gun, but is Gran Turismo based on a true story?
Gran Turismo is one of the most popular racing game series in history. And in 2023, we were treated to a live-action movie based on them.
Saltburn star Archie Madekwe played protagonist Jann Mardenborough, a gamer who wins a contest to drive real race-cars for Nissan as a member of the GT Academy.
Is the Grand Turismo Academy real though? And what about that crash? Spoilers ahead.
Contents:
- Is Gran Turismo based on a true story?
- Is Jack Salter a real person?
- Is Danny Moore a real person?
- Was Jann Mardenborough the first GT Academy winner?
- Qualifying for the GT Academy
- Did Jann Mardenborough place third at Le Mans?
- Jann Mardenborough’s Nürburgring crash
Is Gran Turismo based on a true story?
Gran Turismo is loosely based on the true story of Jann Mardenborough’s time at the GT Academy.
Some of the movie is true-to-life, but there are notable controversial changes.
Is Jack Salter a real person?
Jack Salter from Gran Turismo is not a real person.
Sony PicturesIt seems he’s somewhat inspired by Gavin Gough, an NLP and sports hypnosis practitioner whom Mardenborough met at the academy. “During day 5 of GTAcademy, Gav flicked a switch within me and sat me down at Silverstone. My performance then skyrocketed,” the real Mardenborough tweeted.
In our interview with Darren Cox, who founded the real academy, he said Salter is a “combination of three or four people… there was a guy called Ricardo Davila who was a car designer… absolute legend, and he was an engineer.
There’s a bit of the team manager, a guy called Bob Neville, who ran the team. There’s the rebellious bit of me if you see what I mean in there. And then there’s a couple of coaches, mental coach and physical coach and driving coach.”
David Harbour plays him in the Gran Turismo cast.
Is Danny Moore a real person?
Orlando Bloom’s Danny Moore isn’t a real person but he is inspired by Darren Cox, the founder of the GT Academy.
Sony PicturesWe meet Bloom’s character as a Nissan marketing executive who pitches the GT Academy to the board. They give it the green light and it’s ready to recruit racers shortly after. In reality, Cox pitched it in 2006 and it took two years for the idea to be implemented.
When we spoke to Cox, he said, “I was the guy putting my career on the line to make this happen. So the bits in it that grate a little bit are the parts where I question whether Jann should win or the other guy. That didn’t happen. That wouldn’t have been my way of doing things.
“These things have to be done because it’s Hollywood, but my real character absolutely isn’t about just trying to save the moment,” he continued. Danny is an “approximation” of him, but “certainly not as rebellious and anti-establishment as I was and the program was back in the day.”
Was Jann Mardenborough the first GT Academy winner?
Gran Turismo positions Jann Mardenborough as the first racer to win the GT Academy but this isn’t true.
NissanIt was founded in 2008, and Lucas Ordóñez was the first graduate. The competition didn’t return until 2010, when Jordan Tresson emerged as the winner. Mardenborough entered and won in 2011.
Qualifying for the GT Academy
In the movie, Jann Mardenborough learns he’s eligible for the initial qualifying stage for the GT Academy because of his track times but it was different in real life.
Sony PicturesWhile there were changes across its eight-year run, the process had four phases. Firstly, anyone could qualify after downloading a free update and trying to set the fastest lap time possible in four consecutive rounds in Gran Turismo 6 (or Gran Turismo 5 in its earlier years) on PS3.
Nissan and PlayStation also hosted live events for the qualifying rounds so people could compete at gaming cafes and motorsport conventions. These winners earned a spot in the finals.
Next, competitors who made it to the national finals competed in Gran Turismo 6 time trials and undertook tests of their actual driving ability, personality, physical fitness, and general health.
Those winners were then selected for the race camp, similar to what you see in the movie. There, they were assessed on and off the track and whittled down to a smaller group that went head-to-head in a final race to determine the winner.
Only the winner would progress to the fourth phase: Nissan’s Driver Development Programme, where they’d take 2-4 months of training and several order races to qualify for an international racing license.
Did Jann Mardenborough place third at Le Mans?
The Gran Turismo movie ends with Jann Mardenborough and his sim-racing team placing third at Le Mans. This actually happened.
NissanIn 2013, Mardenborough competed in Le Mans alongside the real first GT Academy winner Lucas Ordóñez, and Michael Krumm, a German professional racer. The latter driver doesn’t have any connection to the GT Academy.
They also weren’t racing for Team Nissan; they were part of Greaves Motorsport.
Did Jann Mardenborough’s Nürburgring crash happen in real life?
Gran Turismo includes Mardenborough’s horror crash at the Nürburgring, in which a spectator was killed. This accident happened in real life but took place at a completely different time.
In the film, Mardenborough is racing at the notorious German track when his car becomes airborne on the Flugplatz, which means airfield, due to how easily cars’ front ends can lift off the track.
He wakes up in hospital, where he’s told the “freak accident” led to the death of a spectator.
It rocks his confidence and makes him wonder whether he’ll ever be mentally and physically capable of racing again. Jack Salter takes him back to the crash scene and forces him to confront his guilt, giving him the confidence to move past the incident and compete at Le Mans.
In real life, this accident rocked the Nürburgring in 2015, two years after he came third at Le Mans. Some critics slammed the movie for this change, accusing the filmmakers of exploiting a tragedy to give the story more weight.
In an interview with The Sunday Times, Mardenborough said it would be a “disservice to the audience” if it wasn’t shown.
“I made sure all of us with the production — the producers, Jason the scriptwriter — that that was how it went down. Because it needed to be correct because somebody lost their life in this accident.”
Cox addressed the controversy in our interview, “if you look at the source video, it’s very close in terms of the action to what happened, and unfortunately I lived through it. Yes, there’s artistic license on the timing side of things, and unfortunately, just like my character not being perfect for me and being a bit of a d*ck… it’s one of those things.”
Overall, Gran Turismo is based on a true story but takes liberties like most Hollywood dramatizations do.
For more, find out how to watch Gran Turismo here. Or check out the Gran Turismo soundtrack.
