There are few things in Japanese GT racing that legend Tetsuya Yamano hasn't achieved. His greatest achievements are in GT3000 racing, where he won the championship with three different cars during the 2004-2005 season.
Yamano has a close relationship with gaming giant Sega, and since the Tokyo-based Sonic creators are the publishers of Project Motor Racing in Japan, they have made sure that Yamano has now become part of the Factory driver programme.
This is a beta-test programme for experienced sim-racing profiles and real racing drivers who can test different "development builds" and provide their feedback via a special portal for the game.
Carwatch:
"Yamano says he hasn't had many opportunities to play games or simulators, so he's not very familiar with current racing games, but he has had the opportunity to play them a couple of times. But even in games that are said to be realistic, he felt a huge difference between real driving and the real thing. Because of this, he couldn't drive the cars in the game the way he wanted.
"Because of this, racing games gave Yamano the impression that he was "bad at it," so he naturally distanced himself from them. However, it was precisely because of this feeling that he found it so appealing to participate in the Factory Driver Program, where "virtual and real are matched almost perfectly and become as precise as a real car." He also commented that he "can't wait" to see how the appeal of motorsport will spread to a wide variety of people, both adults and children, through games that allow them to experience truly realistic car behavior."