Yes, There Really Is a True Story Behind ‘Gran Turismo’

The Big Picture

• Gran Turismo
  ‘s GT Academy was inspired by a real program, but the movie takes creative liberties.
• Jann Mardenborough was not the first GT Academy winner.
• The movie’s retelling of Mardenborough’s accident differs significantly from real events.

Video game adaptations are becoming more and more common, with the success of HBO’s The Last of Us likely being responsible for inspiring many others, such as the upcoming Prime Video series Fallout. 2023’s Gran Turismo is a video game adaptation, but not in the way you think. Starring David Harbour, Orlando Bloom, and Archie Madekwe and directed by Neill Blomkamp, Gran Turismo is inspired by the real-life journey of Jann Mardenborough, a passionate gamer who had the opportunity of a lifetime when Nissan offered him a position in their professional driving team. Such a curious story does deserve its time on the silver screen, but as expected, Gran Turismo takes some liberties with Mardenborough’s journey in favor of storytelling drama. So, how much of Gran Turismo is true, and what are the main differences between the movie and Mardenborough’s successful career?

The Gran Turismo Academy Is Real

While the GT Academy sounds like something made up for dramatic purposes, the program did exist. In 2006, Nissan Europe executive Darren Cox came up with an audacious idea to turn Gran Turismo gamers into real drivers, thanks to a one-of-a-kind partnership between the car company and Sony. Impressed by how the popular video game managed to simulate the conditions of a real racing competition, Cox realized that Sony’s Gran Turismo could be used as the first step into training a new generation of professional drivers, leading to a marketing campaign that could help Nissan to reach out to the whole new generation of consumers. Out of this idea came the GT Academy, a competition that awarded the best Gran Turismo players with immersive real-life training by driving Nissan’s race cars.

While Gran Turismo remains true to the general idea of the GT Academy, the biopic changes the story. For starters, in the movie, the GT Academy is created by marketing executive Danny Moore (Orlando Bloom), who’s inspired by Cox, but doesn’t keep his name. Furthermore, in the movie, the entry process of the GT Academy is highly simplified. In Gran Turismo, Danny tracks down Mardenborough’s (played by Archie Madekwe) gaming history from an arcade machine, realizing the young man has set some impressive track records in the video game franchise. However, in the movie, Mardenborough receives an unexpected invitation to participate in an online race, kicking off his professional driver career.

In real life, though, players had to actively participate in the digital phases of the GT Academy competition using the PlayStation Network ID. Once they subscribed to the program, gamers had to set track records using Nissan cars in the driving simulator before participating in a national final that selected one driver from each participating country. The winners of the national phase were taken to a week-long race camp where they competed in several challenges until one driver was selected to join Nissan’s Driver Development Programme. The program was shut down in 2018 after Nissan changed its motorsports policy and cut down on international investments.

Jann Mardenborough Was Not Gran Turismo Academy’s First Winner

In Gran Turismo, we follow Mardenborough as he joins the first class of the GT Academy team and eventually becomes a professional driver. Things didn’t happen exactly like that in real life, though. The first GT Academy competition was held in 2008, with Spanish gamer Lucas Ordóñez becoming the first graduate driver of the program. In 2009, Cox took a step back on GT Academy to evaluate the program’s success. The GT Academy would return in 2010, quickly expanding beyond Europe in the following years. In 2010, French player Jordan Tresson graduated from the European program. Mardenborough was only the third European champion of the GT Academy, winning the big prize in 2011. Even so, Mardenborough stood apart because he became the youngest winner of the competition, becoming a professional driver when he was only 19 years old, without any prior experience with motorsports.

Another big difference between the movie and Mardenborough’s real-life experience is that the driver didn’t shape his whole life around motorsports. In the biopic, Jann has always dreamed about becoming a professional driver. Still, the real Mardenborough just entered the GT Academy competition to have something to do in his gap year before college. As he told The Telegraph, “I just loved cars. Whatever motorsport was on TV at the time, I would watch it. I wasn’t aware of all these different races series. When I was older, I started watching different bits of it, but I’ve still never watched more than two hours consecutively.”

‘Gran Turismo’s Deadly Accident Also Happened in Real Life

One of the most shocking moments of Gran Turismo happens when Mardenborough has an unexpected accident that takes the life of a spectator. After that, Mardenborough considered dropping out of his professional driving career. The unfortunate event was indeed part of Mardenborough’s career, a defining moment that the driver himself asked PlayStation Production to include in the movie. In an interview, Mardenborough said: “It’s my life; it’s part of my story. So I feel it would have been a disservice for the audience for that not to be in there.” However, while Gran Turismo does include a version of the accident, it completely changes it to fit the story better.

In the movie, Mardenborough loses control of his car in one of his first professional races. The event leads motorsport athletes to join forces to ban simulation drivers from the official competitions, leading Cox to bet everything in the 24-hour Le Mans, one of the most demanding tracks. Leading a team of simulation drivers, Mardenborough finishes the Le Mans track in third place, ensuring the future of GT Academy. In real life, Mardenborough’s accident happened in 2015, two years after he first raced in the 24-hour Le Mans for the first time in 2013.

In addition, Mardenborough’s first time at Le Mans came two years after his GT Academy experience, when the driver had already raced on some of the world’s greatest tracks. So, while the tragic accident led Mardenborough to question his career, it never posed a problem to the existence of the GT Academy. It’s somewhat questionable for Gran Turismo to change the story of an actual death to give the movie’s protagonist the push he needs to become a champion. Still, it’s interesting that Mardenborough was so involved with the script and willing to show the lowest point of his professional racer journey.

Gran Turismo is now available to watch on Netflix in the U.S.

Watch on Netflix