Lincolnshire Police play Gran Turismo to improve driving

Police officers have been honing their high-speed driving skills by practising on the PlayStation game Gran Turismo.

Lincolnshire Police sent four specialist officers to Silverstone in Northamptonshire to see if the extra tuition would be worthwhile.

The drivers completed a lap of the track in a police car before practising on Gran Turismo Sport to work on issues like oversteering or late braking.

They then returned to the track to try to improve their lap times.

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The force said the results showed that some of the officers did manage to reduce their times and increase smoothness and stability in their driving.

Assistant Chief Constable Shaun West said officers met with experts to see if the method "could offer Lincolnshire Police an alternate way of looking at how we develop and supplement our existing training methods".

He added: "If Gran Turismo can help to train world class racing drivers, then we were keen to explore whether it could offer anything to our officers and help expand the way we think about evolving and refreshing our training methods."

ACC West said the force was not looking to substitute driver training, but was finding ways to bolster it.

Laurence Wiltshire, from GT Academy at Silverstone, said: "It's one thing to train racing drivers but the idea that a game could help officers respond to emergencies more efficiently is mind-blowing."

Lincolnshire Police said the training was paid for by PlayStation so was at no cost to the taxpayer.