Philippines triumphs; India third in GT Academy

The final day saw five more eliminations from the GT Academy as one driver each were selected for the final race of the competition to decide the winner.

Before the race, each of the 10 drivers were given 20 minutes of practice in the Nissan 370Z NISMO race car at the Silverstone circuit which was to decide the one driver, who will move for the final race later in the day.

For the Indian team, it was Akshay Gupta, who was selected for the race while Shantanu Kallianpurkar was eliminated by the judges and mentor Karun Chandhok.

Gupta started fourth as per fifth day's stock car qualifying round while Andika Rama of Indonesia started on pole.

Rama started the race well and led into the first corner, ahead of Policarpio from the Philippines who had leapfrogged Takuya Takahashi from Japan.

Policarpio made his move on the fifth lap to incisively take the lead of the race while Takahashi retired from the race which put Gupta to third.

In the end, Policarpio remained calm to take victory, not only in the race but was also declared the overall winner by the judges and the mentors; Rama was second while Gupta completed the podium but lost out on winning the Nissan contract.

"I think overall the standard this year from the Indian team was definitely higher than last year," Chandhok told Motorsport.com after the race.

"It was hard work for them this week with a lot of challenges, but I have to say that they all had potential," the Indian added.

"Overall though, I really enjoyed working with these five guys.

"They were all very likeable characters chasing their dreams and I hope they all learnt something along the way," he concluded.