The latest Gran Turismo 7 update, released today, has brought a surprising change through what looks like a complete rework of the Balance of Performance (BOP) in the core esports category just a week before the 2025 season officially gets underway.
If you’re not familiar with BOP, it’s essentially a method designed to equalize performance of racing cars in a given category during an event, usually by applying maximum power/torque (with mandated torque sensors to detect sandbagging) and minimum weight limits. The goal is to even out a field in order that, barring incidents, a race lasts from lights-out to the checkered flag without any one car getting too far ahead or behind its peers.
In GT7 it doesn’t entirely work that way — we have notes — but the ethos is similar. The cars in each racing class have maximum power and minimum weight restrictions directly imposed, with all other vehicle settings (other than brake balance and fuel mapping) locked out. It doesn’t apply on a race-by-race basis as in the real world, but seems to be a kind of average of one-lap pace across several tracks.
This method is a little hit and miss, often resulting in certain cars becoming grossly over-performing at certain tracks to become what players call the “META”: most effective tactic available. However, in general terms, the core Gr.3 class had been pretty even at mixed-speed tracks under recent calculations.
The BOP change hasn’t been specifically announced, but it was quickly picked up on by players after the Daily Race B qualifying leaderboard was wiped. Polyphony Digital often does this in response to larger changes that affect pace — such as BOP changes, physics changes in updates, and implementing countermeasures to abject cheating — so it triggered a closer look.
While BOP does get tweaked from time to time, today’s change is one of the most wide-ranging we’ve seen. Every car in the category has been subject to a significant drop in power, averaging out to about 40hp per vehicle at each of the three BOP settings: low, medium, and high. Depending on which setting is used, most cars have either gained weight too or remained the same, which has also seen a major fall in the cars’ Performance Point (PP) values.
The timing is significant, as it comes after the end of the last Manufacturers Cup Exhibition Season and only six days before the official qualifiers for the 2025 Manufacturers Cup season begin. That leaves very little time for players to make their choices for which brand they want to represent based on an entirely new category dynamic.
We’ve already seen some lively discussion on the forums about the consequences of this massive change to BOP, and that’s like to continue into, and through, the qualifiers that begin April 2 — with as-yet unknown car and track combinations.
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