Basically last year one of the GT Academy winners (Jann Mardenborough) almost won the British GT Pro-Am class.
It's a class where Pro drivers are paired with Amateurs (non-professional) "gentleman drivers".
However the GT Academy winner was turning lap times on par with the Pro drivers.
For that reason GT Academy winners will not be allowed to be the "Amateur" part of the Pro-Am class.
Even though the majority of their "racing experience" is GT5.
Here's what GT Planet quoted series manager Benjamin Franassovici as saying:
Quote:
[GT Academy] has shown itself to be a great way to source raw talent and turn that into real racing talent as we saw in British GT last year with Jann Mardenborough. However Nissan's ability to find such amazing raw talent means that we cannot accept their full season entry for British GT in 2013. Their new recruits have very little racing experience so they have to be on the lowest performance grade. Their talent, going on Jann's speed last year, doesn't reflect this lack of experience so it is not fair to put them up against our Pro/Gentleman grid, the basis of British GT3.