ALL GT ACADEMY LINE-UP REVEALED FOR JANUARY'S DUBAI 24 HOUR

DUBAI, UAE – Nissan will field an all-GT Academy alumni driver line-up in next year's Hankook Dubai 24 Hours with recent race camp victor Mexican Johnny Guindi making his international race debut.

Guindi will be joined by fellow GT Academy winners Jann Mardenborough (UK), Romain Sarazin (France) and fellow Mexican winner, Ricardo Sanchez in a four-driver line-up in the United Arab Emirates endurance classic.

The quartet will drive a Nissan 370 GT4 in the first major international endurance event of 2017, the entry run by Nissan GT Academy Team RJN.

Mardenborough has spent 2016 racing in Japan where he was a race winner in the GT300 class in Super GT and finished second in the Japanese Formula 3 Championship. The 2011 GT Academy winner also competed for the first time last weekend in the prestigious Formula 3 Macau Grand Prix.

Sanchez won the GT Academy International competition in 2014 and actually made his international debut at the Dubai 24 Hour in 2015. Both he and 2015 GT Academy European winner Romain Sarazin did battle for Nissan last year in the Blancpain GT Championship across Europe.

Guindi has been put through an intensive driver development program since being announced as the 2016 GT Academy International winner last month.

'I did a couple of 'All Comers' races in the Nissan 370Z Group N car at Brands Hatch, Snetterton and Silverstone,' said Guindi. 'After seven of those races I graduated into the much faster Nissan 370Z GT4 car for the Britcar 'Into the Night' 50 minute night race at Brands Hatch. I also did my first two overseas races in a Radical SR3 at Dubai Autodrome for the Radical Middle East Cup series. It has been great preparation. Apart from the race program, I'll keep working very hard to prepare myself physically during the short winter break before the race in Dubai. We're certainly keen to try to win. We have the car to do so, and we definitely have the drivers to do so.'

The race will be held on January 13-14, 2017.