SimRacingGirl Interviews GT Academy winner Wolfgang Reip

SimRacingGirl Interviews GT Academy winner Wolfgang Reip

SimRacingGirl visited the Belgian Circuit Zolder to interview 2012 GT Academy winner Wolfgang Reip about his journey from Sim Racer to a Professional racing driver.

Belgian sim racer and GT Academy competitor ” Wolfie” Wolfgang Reip emerged victorious from over 830,000 European Gran Turismo gamers when he was crowned Nissan PlayStation GT Academy champion at Silverstone in 2012. After winning, he was thrown in the midst of the GT Academy’s intensive Driver Development Program in order to obtain an International C racing license ahead of the 24 Hours of Dubai where the GT Academy winners shared two Nissan 370Z race cars.

In 2014, Wolfie participated in the 24 Hours of Le Mans driving the Garage 56 Nissan ZEOD RC with fellow GT Acadamy winner Lucas Ordóñez and Japanese Nissan works driver Satoshi Motoyama. Sadly enough, the team has to throw in the towel after 5 laps due to a transmission problem.

From there on, Wolfgang had a very successful racing career, leading to a Liqui Moly Bathurst 12 Hour win in the Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 and becoming 2015 Blancpain Endurance Series – GT3 Pro Cup champion in a factory RJN-run GT-R NISMO GT3. In 2016 Wolfgang was signed to drive the M-Sport Bentley Continental GT3 alongside Andy Soucek and Maxime Soulet. This gave him the chance to defend his Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup title. The #8 Bentley ended the 2016 season in a respectable 3rd place.

Next week, Wolfgang Reip will participate in the 2017 edition of the 24 hours of Zolder. Wolfie will be teaming up with Frank and Hans Thiers and Jeffrey Van Hooydonk, driving a Norma M20 FC for the Scuderia Monza team run by DVB Racing.

We wish him a successful 24H race and will surely root for him trackside.