Former GT Academy winners Wolfgang Reip and Florian Strauss, alongside Japanese Formula 3 and Super GT driver Katsumasa Chiyo, have won the 2015 Bathurst 12 Hour at Australia’s world-famous Mount Panorama circuit.

Bathurst 1000 fans may remember the reaction the last time a GT-R won at Mount Panorama...

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German Florian Strauss was the 2013 GT Academy Germany winner. Prior to that he was working as a car rental manager and had no motor racing experience. Belgian Wolfgang Reip, the 2012 GT Academy Europe champ, was an “avid indoor go-karter” but had never pursued a career in racing.After a race punctuated by 20 safety cars, the first caused by a kangaroo on track, Chiyo was able to pass two cars on the penultimate lap to nab the win. The victory is the first win for Reip and Strauss, and the first win for a Nissan GT-R at Mount Panorama in over two decades (since the R32 GT-R of Jim Richards and Mark Skaife took back-to-back Bathurst 1000 wins in 1991 and 1992).“It is incredible, our first win for the last two years we have been racing, so really a lot of emotions,” said Reip via GT Academy on Facebook . “It was very stressful as we had a strategy and then with the Safety Cars we did not know what would happen – we didn’t really expect any more to win, but the last 10 minutes was incredible. The car was very good here, it is definitely a track that suits us. It was a good race.”“It is just awesome, still unbelievable,” said Strauss, who joined the team as a late replacement and has only been a racing driver for 18 months. “I am very lucky that we have won, no one can say what would you have achieved with Alex, we couldn’t have achieved a better result. The team did an amazing job all weekend, Chiyo put the car in first place, the team put all the effort in to get the car ready in the morning.”Created in 2008 by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, GT developer Polyphony Digital, and Nissan Europe the GT Academy is an international contest that pits the best Gran Turismo

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