Gran Turismo World Series

Gran Turismo World Series

Current season, competition or edition: Sony Alpha, Toyota
Official website	Official website

The Gran Turismo World Series (also referred to as the GTWS) is a series of professional Gran Turismo world championship esports tournaments, managed directly by Japanese game development studio Polyphony Digital.^[1] The championship contains two series that are held concurrently throughout the year: the Nations Cup (entrants from their respective countries will represent them) and the Manufacturers Cup (entrants will race for and represent their chosen manufacturer). The series uses Polyphony Digital's latest racing video game Gran Turismo 7.

Through 2018 to 2021, the Gran Turismo World Series was previously sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile. Polyphony Digital's partnership with the FIA is currently on hiatus.^[2]

The Nations Cup and Manufacturers Cup trophies are laser-scanned reproductions of Italian sculptor Umberto Boccioni's 1913 bronze futurist sculpture Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, chosen by Polyphony Digital as it represents the “surprise and fascination of machines first discovered by mankind”, and also shares values held by the Gran Turismo series.^[3] Players are given a plaque for their participation in the series during live events and by the end of the year. Players who finish in the Top 3 in any series receive a gold plaque and a trophy. Players were also formerly given a TAG Heuer watch, but no longer became a prize after their partnership with Polyphony ended in 2020; a set of Sony Alpha photography equipment were given out that year, followed by a set of BBS wheels for 2021.

Polyphony Digital announced its partnership with governing body Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile in June 2014 to provide a more realistic racing experience in virtual motorsport. It permitted the Japanese studio to feature content certified by the FIA and launch an online championship in Gran Turismo 6 for the following year in 2015.^[12] It would be the earliest example of an official online championship managed by Polyphony Digital and sanctioned by the FIA. The following year in 2016, Polyphony and the FIA announced the formation of the FIA-Certified Gran Turismo Championships (FIA GTC).^[13]

The FIA GTC was established in Gran Turismo Sport shortly after the game's release. Many test seasons ran from 2017 to 2018, and the first official season commenced that year. The first World Tour was also held at Nürburgring, which saw Giorgio Mangano from Italy as the first Nations Cup event winner, and Philippe Nicolay, Matthew Thomas, and Anthony Duval, representing BMW as the first Manufacturer Series event winners.^[14][15] Former FIA Formula 3 Championship driver Igor Fraga became the inaugural Nations Cup champion in 2018, and Kanata Kawakami, Vincent Rigaud, and Tyrell Meadows also became the inaugural Manufacturer Series champions that year.^[16][17][18] As part of the FIA's involvement as a sanctioning body for the series, the champions were also honoured at the FIA Prize Giving Ceremony.

The format for the series changed in 2021 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[19] All previously planned live events were dropped, and the season would instead be held online.

The series transferred over to Gran Turismo 7 for the 2022 season. Polyphony's partnership with the FIA was also put on hiatus that year, with FIA's Director of Innovative Sporting Projects, Frederic Bertrand, stating that they would resume the collaboration once Gran Turismo 7 becomes a sufficiently stable platform.^[2][20][21] As a result, the FIA name was dropped, and the tournament was renamed to the Gran Turismo World Series (GTWS). Two live events were reintroduced as part of the 2022 season, with the series returning to Hangar-7 in Salzburg, Austria for the Showdown and Monte-Carlo Sporting in Monte Carlo, Monaco for the World Finals.

The tournament has also hosted exhibition races since 2019. One of these exhibition races is known as 'Pro-Am', where competitors of the series would pair with various personalities, spanning from content creators to professional racing drivers, including former Formula One driver Juan Pablo Montoya and seven-time Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton.^[22] Exhibition races have also been hosted by Sony's artificial intelligence department, Sony AI, where select series drivers race against their agent known as 'Gran Turismo Sophy',^[23] developed in collaboration by Sony AI, Sony Interactive Entertainment, and Polyphony Digital. This race is also used as a testing ground for Sony's AI team to evaluate Sophy's pace and behaviour on the race track.^[24][25]

List of Entries

Nations Cup

Manufacturers Cup

Format

2018 season

Before the "Online Series" is started, every season begins with a "World Tour" event, containing the top drivers from the season prior. The winner from the World Tour event gains direct access to the "World Final" event.^[26]

A phase dubbed as the "Online Series", which is essentially a qualification phase to decide the participants that will race in the live events of the championship tournament, kicks off every season. The Online Series is divided into four stages, with each stage hosting ten rounds.^[27] By the end of each stage, another World Tour event is hosted, which includes the top players from that stage instead of the top drivers from the previous season.^[27] The top players who are selected after the series must sign an application form in order to be able to participate for the World Tour events, and they must also be over 18.^[27][28] The Online Series goes on for five to seven months.^[27]

The "Live Events" begin after the Online Series. The Nations Cup category includes the top 90 players (30 per region) with the highest points across all four stages. Three different live events occur, with each live event carrying a specific world region. The top 10 players from those regions enter the "World Final" event, a championship stage to decide the number one player. The Manufacturer Series category includes the top 48 players (three players per region) and 16 manufacturers with the highest points across all four stages. The top players and manufacturers participate in the "World Final" event, to decide the top three players and the number one manufacturer.^[29] The winners of their respective series at the "World Final" are crowned either Nations Cup champion or Manufacturer Series champion.

2020 season

Format changes during COVID-19 pandemic

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was announced that the 2020 World Finals would be held as an online-based event.^[30]

Further format changes were made for 2021, where the online season (named World Series) was divided into six online races (replacing the physical World Tours), four of them containing one race for Nations Cup and Manufacturer Series, plus the mid-season "Showdown" playoff races and the grand finals, which were aired as tape delayed streams. The first two World Series races featured top competitors from the previous season (16 Nations Cup drivers and 12 Manufacturer Series players that chose the same manufacturer as with the previous season, with limit of one player per brand), after which they would race together against top players from the first half of the online qualifiers (the in-game races accessible to the general public) in the Showdown to determine who would advance to the next two stages. Players that advanced to the third and fourth round would then face opponents that qualified in the second half of the online qualifiers through the same criteria in the grand finals.^[19]

2023 season

The Nations Cup format saw a switch from a single-driver series to a team-based event, a format previously used by Polyphony Digital in 2018 at the Hangar-7 World Tour.^[31]

The online season was divided into fourteen online races (seven rounds per series), in which top players would race against each other to determine who would qualify for both the Showdown event in August and for the World Tour grand finals in December. For the new team-based Nations Cup format, entries were decided based on the highest finishing players affiliated with their country in the points standings. The top three competitors of each country would form the lineup for their respective team.

Events with live audiences also returned in 2023 for the first time since the 2020 Sydney World Tour event, with the Showdown round in Theater Amsterdam at Amsterdam, the Netherlands.^[32]

Leagues

Players can participate in the Online Series from within the Sport mode of Gran Turismo 7. Players that register are separated in three leagues based on in-game driver rating; 'GT1 League' with a driver rating of A and higher, 'GT2 League' with a driver rating of B, and 'GT3 League' with a driver rating of C and lower. However, only those in the GT1 League are eligible for participation in the World Series and World Finals live events.^[33]

In other media

World Series drivers including previous champions Igor Fraga, Mikail Hizal, Takuma Miyazono, Tomoaki Yamanaka, Valerio Gallo, Coque López, and Daniel Solis appear in Gran Turismo 7 as AI opponents and License Test coaches.^[34]

Media coverage

The World Series races are usually streamed live from Dock10 studios^[35] on YouTube and Twitch under the official Gran Turismo and PlayStation channels, and are available to watch through several languages.^{[citation needed]}

Series champions

There have been five different Nations Cup champions and eleven different individual Manufacturers Series champions since the series' foundation, in addition to four different winners in the Toyota GR GT Cup.

Igor Fraga from Brazil, along with Tomoaki Yamanaka and Takuma Miyazono from Japan, and Daniel Solis from the United States, hold the most individual Manufacturer Series titles with two each, Fraga and Yamanaka for Toyota, and Miyazono and Solis for Subaru. Fraga and Miyazono hold the most championship titles in total with four, each holding one Toyota GR GT Cup title, one Nations Cup title, and two individual Manufacturer Series titles. Miyazono scored a treble in 2020 by winning the Toyota GR GT Cup and both GT World Series championships. Coque López from Spain became the first repeat Nations Cup champion after scoring a second consecutive Nations Cup championship title in 2023 alongside his compatriots José Serrano and Pol Urra, the latter of whom also won that year's Toyota GR GT Cup championship.

Igor Fraga, Mikail Hizal, Takuma Miyazono, and Coque López are the only World Series champions to have won both the Nations Cup and Manufacturer Series championships. Fraga is also the only participant to have won a championship in both the Gran Turismo World Series and real-world motorsport.^[36]

Season	Toyota GR GT Cup	Nations Cup	Manufacturers Cup
2018	Not held	Igor Fraga	Kanata Kawakami Tyrell Meadows Vincent Rigaud	Lexus
2019	Mikail Hizal	Mikail Hizal	Rayan Derrouiche Igor Fraga Tomoaki Yamanaka	Toyota
2020	Takuma Miyazono	Takuma Miyazono	Mikail Hizal Takuma Miyazono Daniel Solis	Subaru
2021	Tomoaki Yamanaka	Valerio Gallo	Igor Fraga Coque López Tomoaki Yamanaka	Toyota
2022	Igor Fraga	Coque López	Kylian Drumont Takuma Miyazono Daniel Solis	Subaru
2023	Pol Urra	Pol Urra Coque López José Serrano	Mehdi Hafidi Ryota Kokubun Mateo Estevez	Nissan

Past competitions

• Bold indicates world championship events.

Season	Game	Event	Venue	Date	Nations Cup	Manufacturers Cup	Ref
2018	Gran Turismo Sport	World Tour 2018 - Nürburgring	Nürburg, Germany	10-13 May	Italy Giorgio Mangano	BMW Anthony Duval Philippe Nicolay Matthew Thomas	[14][15]
		World Tour 2018 - Red Bull Hangar-7	Salzburg, Austria	22 September	Hungary Patrik Blazsán Ádám Tápai Benjámin Báder	Nissan Mikail Hizal Andrew McCabe	[37]
		Nations Cup Asia/Oceania Final 2018	Odaiba, Japan	6-7 October	Japan Ryota Kokubun	Not held	[38]
		Nations Cup European Final 2018	Madrid, Spain	19-20 October	Germany Mikail Hizal		[39]
		Nations Cup Americas Final 2018	Las Vegas, Nevada, USA	31 October	Brazil Igor Fraga		[40]
		World Finals 2018	Monte Carlo, Monaco	16-18 November	Brazil Igor Fraga	Lexus Kanata Kawakami Tyrell Meadows Vincent Rigaud	[16][41]
2019		World Tour 2019 - Paris	Paris, France	16-17 March	Chile Nicolas Rubilar	Aston Martin Thomas Compton-McPherson Yoshiharu Imai Christopher Marcell	[42]
		World Tour 2019 - Nürburgring	Nürburg, Germany	21-22 June	Brazil Igor Fraga	Toyota Simon Bishop Rick Kevelham Tomoaki Yamanaka	[43]
		World Tour 2019 - New York	New York City, New York, USA	24-25 August	Brazil Igor Fraga	Mercedes-AMG Anthony Felix Cody Nikola Latkovski Bernal Valverde	[44]
		World Tour 2019 - Red Bull Hangar-7	Salzburg, Austria	13-14 September	Germany Mikail Hizal	Mercedes-AMG Anthony Felix Tom Lartilleux Cody Nikola Latkovski	[45]
		World Tour 2019 - Tokyo	Tokyo, Japan	26-27 October	Japan Ryota Kokubun	Porsche Tristan Bayless Angel Inostroza Matt Simmons	[46]
		World Finals 2019	Monte Carlo, Monaco	22-24 November	Germany Mikail Hizal	Toyota Rayan Derrouiche Igor Fraga Tomoaki Yamanaka	[47][48]
2020		World Tour 2020 - Sydney	Sydney, Australia	15-16 February	Japan Takuma Miyazono	BMW Randall Haywood Coque López Nicolás Rubilar	[49]
		World Tour 2020 - Nürburgring	Nürburg, Germany	22-23 May	Cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the postponement of 2020 24 Hours of Nürburgring		[50]
		Nations Cup EMEA Regional Final 2020	Online	22 November	Spain Coque López	Not held	[51]
		Nations Cup Americas Regional Final 2020		29 November	Brazil Adriano Carrazza		[52]
		Nations Cup Asia-Oceania Regional Final 2020		6 December	Japan Takuma Miyazono		[53]
		World Finals 2020		19-20 December	Japan Takuma Miyazono	Subaru Mikail Hizal Takuma Miyazono Daniel Solis	[54][55]
2021		World Series 2021 Round 1		6 June	Italy Valerio Gallo	Porsche Angel Inostroza	[56]
		World Series 2021 Round 2		11 July	Hungary Patrik Blazsán	Subaru Takuma Miyazono	[57]
		World Series 2021 Showdown		21-22 August	Japan Ryota Kokubun	Toyota Igor Fraga Coque López Tomoaki Yamanaka	[58][59]
		World Series 2021 Round 3		3 October	Italy Valerio Gallo	Porsche José Serrano	[60]
		World Series 2021 Round 4		14 November	Italy Valerio Gallo	Toyota Igor Fraga	[61]
		World Finals 2021		3-5 December	Italy Valerio Gallo	Toyota Igor Fraga Coque López Tomoaki Yamanaka	[62][63]
2022	Gran Turismo 7	World Series 2022 Round 1		23-24 July	Brazil Lucas Bonelli	Subaru Takuma Miyazono	[64]
		World Series 2022 Showdown	Salzburg, Austria	30-31 July	France Kylian Drumont	Subaru Kylian Drumont Takuma Miyazono[a] Daniel Solis	[65][66][67]
		World Series 2022 Round 2	Online	25 September 9 October	Chile Angel Inostroza	Toyota Igor Fraga	[68][69]
		World Series 2022 Round 3		6 November 13 November	Spain José Serrano	Toyota Ryota Kokubun	[70][71]
		World Finals 2022	Monte Carlo, Monaco	25-27 November	Spain Coque López[b]	Subaru[c] Kylian Drumont Takuma Miyazono Daniel Solis	[72][73][74]
2023		World Series 2023 Showdown	Amsterdam, Netherlands	11-12 August	Spain Pol Urra Coque López José Serrano	Porsche Angel Inostroza[d] Takuma Sasaki José Serrano	[75][76]
		World Finals 2023	Barcelona, Spain	1-3 December	Spain Pol Urra Coque López José Serrano	Nissan Mateo Estevez Mehdi Hafidi Ryota Kokubun	[75]
2024		World Series 2024 Round 1	Montreal, Quebec, Canada	6 July			[77]
		World Series 2024 Round 2	Prague, Czechia	10 August			[77]
		World Series 2024 Round 3	Tokyo, Japan	28 September			[77]
		World Finals 2024	TBD				[77]

References

External links

• Official website