The 2024 finals for the Gran Turismo World Series are almost upon us, taking place in Amsterdam this coming weekend.
It’s a debut for the location in terms of hosting a World Finals, but both the city and venue are known quantities having staged the mid-season Showdown in the 2023 championship. That makes a fourth successive different location for the finals, after Barcelona, the return to live events in Monaco in 2022, and the online finals in 2020-2021.
Those who were there last year will know what to expect then, with the Theater Amsterdam — on the waterfront of the IJ river — once again hosting. It features a 45,000 square-foot auditorium, with seating for around 800 people which we’re expecting to be filled to the rafters again.
There’s been a couple of format changes for 2024, perhaps most notably the switch back to the solo nature of the Nations Cup. This likely means that Spain will be the only teams champion, having taken the victory in 2023 through Coque Lopez, Jose Serrano, and Pol Urra.
Another switch for 2024 sees the action condensed into two days rather than three. That’ll put some pressure on the drivers racing in the Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup as well as the other events, not least in terms of time.
As well as the live-streamed races there’ll be chances for viewers to earn in-game rewards by taking part in two special campaigns, and we’re going to see the debut of some new content ahead of its arrival in Gran Turismo 7 next year.
Saturday December 7: Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup Final
This event has always been a solid form guide for the World Finals, raising the curtain on the event and almost always predicting a winner of the other championships. Four of five Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup winners have gone on to win another event, with the exception being the already-crowned Igor Fraga…
As has been the case in previous years, the event will be contested by 24 qualifiers, comprising the fastest 21 from the online portion of the competition and three qualifiers from a special regional event in Asia. Given that they include a top GT World Challenge driver, Andika Rama Maulana, and Olympic finalist Karl Etyemezian, we’re expecting a highly competitive field.
Unusually there’s only one returning champion in the field, and it’s Pol Urra defending his 2023 title. He’ll have to beat several drivers with another championship title to their names — notably Coque Lopez, Jose Serrano, and (at long last!) 2023 Manufacturers winner Ryota Kokubun.
No driver has ever won more than one Toyota crown though, and there’s plenty of strength through the field. We wouldn’t be betting against the Brazilian pair of Lucas Bonelli and Adriano Carrazza (with no offense intended towards their countryman Roberto Sternberg), Takuma Sasaki is one to watch, and we might see a first North American winner this year too: Randall Haywood must surely be due a title.
It’s going to be a high-speed event, with qualifying and both semi-finals using the Toyota Super Formula car — at Road Atlanta, then Interlagos and the Red Bull Ring — to determine the grid for the winner-takes all final in the GR010 over eight laps of the 24 Hours of Le Mans circuit.
The event gets underway on Saturday December 7 at 1500 UTC.
Saturday December 7: Manufacturers Cup Final
There’s barely a pause before the Manufacturers Cup the same day, returning in its familiar format.
That will see teams of three drivers — one from each of the three qualifying regions — representing the 12 qualified marques. As usual, this will include the three partner brands of Genesis, Mazda, and Toyota, along with the best nine other manufacturers, and we’ve already seen all 12 in action this year.
There’s a few personnel changes compared to the three rounds raced in Montreal, Prague, and Tokyo, and arguably the biggest one of all is the absence of Igor Fraga. Fraga will be racing his real Lexus GT3 this weekend — in the Suzuka 300 in Super GT — and has been replaced at the digital Lexus by Chile’s Harald Walsen.
Lexus does currently hold the championship lead, having accumulated 13 World Series points through two wins from three events. However there’s many more than that available in the World Final and the lead could vanish very quickly.
Among the favorites to overhaul Lexus is Porsche, which keeps its three-driver team of Benjamin Hencsei, Arthur Mosso, and Takuma Sasaki intact for the finals – and could be the first ever non-Japanese brand to win the title. The BMW squad of Thomas Labouteley, Calen Roach, and Seiya Suzuki is close behind too.
We’ll be keeping our eyes on Mazda, which will bring an outrageous squad of Robbie Heck, Ryota Kokubun, and Pol Urra, while Subaru has its own dream team of Kylian Drumont, Angel Inostroza, and Takuma Miyazono but surprisingly drawn two blanks this year.
A mild format change will see a superpole-style event this year. Three qualification sessions — in the Gr.3 cars at Spa — each on a different tire compound will whittle down the field from 12 to nine to six, with each team progressing required to run a new driver each time. The first session will set positions 10-12, the second will set positions 7-9, and the final session determines the top six order.
That will then lead into the final, a 20-lap race of the same combination with each driver required to drive at least one stint.
The Manufacturers Cup final gets underway at 1800 UTC on Saturday December 7.
Sunday December 8: Nations Cup Final
There’s a bit of a breather before the Nations Cup finishes off the event, and it’s going to be quite an involved affair spread over four races.
We should all be familiar with the field by now, as the 12 finalists have been racing across the previous three rounds this season. It’s a pretty well-stacked line-up too, which includes five Nations Cup champions (two from Team Spain’s 2023 win) and the only double-winner too. The group also has four Manufacturers Cup titles and a Toyota championship, although three of those wins belong to one driver.
Currently the points lead is held by a non-champion, Kylian Drumont, with a slender one-point lead from three former winners: Valerio Gallo, Takuma Miyazono, and Jose Serrano. The fourth, Coque Lopez, is just two points further back, and with the points on offer at the finals that’s just about no gap at all.
An initial hot-lap qualifying session (for which specialist Kaj de Bruin surely must be favorite) will set the first grid, and this particular event is of interest as it will use the yet-to-be-added Hyundai Ioniq 5N in its series debut.
The fan-favorite road car race, featuring a dozen vehicles from different brands with specific tunes, will follow after that. This ten-lap race around Trial Mountain is perfect, old-school Gran Turismo fodder, and offers 12 points for victory as well as setting the grid for a mystery second race.
Likewise, that race will set the grid order for the 24-point grand final which looks to be a catastrophe on the face of it. As is traditional now, that will feature the lethal Red Bull X2019 Competition cars, but over seven laps of the Nurburgring 24h circuit. We’re expecting… a lot.
It’s likely to be a winner-takes-all event by the nature of the points system, but it won’t necessarily be the case — so keep your calculators handy.
The event gets underway at 1800 UTC on Sunday December 8.
Bonus Campaign & Viewer Campaign
You don’t have to be in it to win it though, as you can watch along at home and earn rewards too.
A total of six gifts are available across two special campaigns that are both accessible from within Gran Turismo 7 itself.
There’s a 1m credit bonus per correct guess in the Predict the Winners campaign, which invites you to… well, predict the winners. Make your selection for who’s going to take the title in each event and if you’re right then a credit ticket will be sent to you for each one you get. Up to 3m credits is available, if you get all three.
You don’t need to pick now though. In fact you have right up until the moment the final race in each event starts to make your choice. That means you can watch the various qualifying sessions and lead-in races to determine form before making your selection.
Meanwhile the Viewers Campaign just wants to get you to watch. Head to the special in-game area and click on the “Watch Stream (Entry Available)” button anywhere from the start of the relevant stream and until 0900 UTC on Monday December 16; you don’t need to watch much, and if you back out and see the button has changed to “Watch Stream (Entry Submitted)”, you’re good to go.
You’ll score a Six-Star Roulette ticket for watching the Toyota GR GT Cup event, the Gr.3 car from the winning manufacturer for watching the Manufacturers Cup event, and the new Hyundai Ioniq 5N for watching the Nations Cup event. Be aware that the last one won’t be delivered until it becomes available in the January 2025 update.
Other Activities: Pro-Am, Celebrities, and Reveals
The World Finals usually bring some additional surprises and fun moments too.
Every year thus far there’s been a Pro-Am event, pairing a finalist “Pro” driver with a media/influencer “Am” guest. The “amateurs” have always been a bit of a mix, from novices through to players at the sort of level of GTPlanet’s staff, and then beyond up to hardcore racing game streamers and literally F1 drivers. We’re not sure what the 2024 event will look like, but it’s sure to be entertaining. Well, to watch, at least, as they’re rather stressful to take part in!
We’ve also seen a few celebrity appearances, with Sir Lewis Hamilton a frequent World Finals attendee. There’s little danger of an F1 driver appearance this weekend as they’re all off racing in Abu Dhabi, but we’re sure there’ll be a famous face or two. GT7’s “Sarah Eaton” (actress Selin Cuhadaroglu) even attended in 2022…
These events are also an opportunity for new content and partnerships to be revealed, and while the Hyundai Ioniq 5N cat is already out of its bag there could be more to come. We’ve previously seen Vision GT cars being unveiled at World Finals — two in 2023 — but we’re not aware of any being in the works.
Either way, GTPlanet is on the ground at the event, so keep your eye on the site and our social media channels for all the latest!
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