On Thursday May 17, The Nürburgring 24 Hour Race has started at the Nürburgring circuit of Germany. This year's race is the commemorative 40th race since its start in 1970. There are well over 100 thousand spectators here to see the battle between 200 racing machines, in the forest of Eifel also dubbed the "Green Hell",

As with last year, major German works teams of Porsche, Audi, BMW, and Mercedes clash, while Aston Martins, Corvettes, and the new McLaren jump into the fray. From Japan are the Lexus LF A, Subaru Impreza and the Toyota 86, while the Peugeot RCZ and MINI face off in the compact car class.

Gran Turismo Series Producer Kazunori Yamauchi will participate in this race as a member of the new "GT Academy" team. Joining the list of drivers is the first GT Academy Winner, Lucas Ordonez, who will be driving the race for the first time alongside Tobias Schulze who raced with Yamauchi last year, as well as Yasukichi Yamamoto. The car they will be driving is the Nissan GT-R, a car that has been kept close in specs to the commercially sold Club Track Edition road car.

The start of the race final is Saturday, May 19 at 4PM local time. gran-turismo.com will be setting up a special page to bring you coverage from the world's greatest grass-roots race. Enjoy the 24 hour drama brought to you by man and machine, right on this page.