Polyphony Digital has announced a short, surprise Exhibition Season for the 2024 Gran Turismo World Series, beginning this coming weekend and filling the esports gap between the Montreal and Prague live events.
Unusually, it’s only been announced as a Manufacturers Cup season, with a compact, four-race schedule exclusively featuring the core Gr.3 cars from each of the two-dozen brands represented in the game. As yet this isn’t accompanied by a Nations Cup event.
With just five weeks between the two live events — and an update set to come on Thursday July 25 — the schedule is a perfect fit, as each race falls on an otherwise unoccupied Saturday. The calendar is as follows:
GT World Series Manufacturers Cup Exhibition Season 1
- Round 1 – July 13 – Gr.3 – Interlagos – 20/30 laps
- Round 2 – July 20 – Gr.3 – Tokyo East Clockwise – 12 laps
- Round 3 – July 27 – Gr.3 – Autopolis – 10 laps
- Round 4 – August 3 – Gr.3 – Nurburgring GP – 15 laps
Notably there’s almost no difference in the races for GT1 and GT2/GT3 Leagues this time round, with the only obvious one being the 50% longer opening race in GT1. Of course GT1 retains the “heavy damage” setting — requiring a pit stop to repair — rather than the self-healing “light damage” of GT2 and GT3.
Also of interest is the relative lack of tire wear or mandatory tires in the second-round event at Tokyo. While other events have higher wear multipliers, as well as mandatory changes in two, for Tokyo it’s set as its base value. That could well indicate a wet-weather event, so prepare for some showers by picking up Intermediate and Wet Racing tires.
As the mid-season update promises “new physics” it’s certainly going to be interesting to see how the cars — and the Gr.3 Balance of Performance — change between the first two rounds and the last two.
Once more, there’s ten slots for each round in GT2 and GT3 League, which start hourly across the bulk of daylight hours in the central timezone of each region — from 0800 to 1800 UTC in the EMEA region. GT1 League players get just three slots, starting every two hours in the afternoon/evening, from 1400 to 1800 UTC in EMEA.
While you can enter as many slots as you have available to you, only your last entered race for each round counts — even if you disconnect and score zero. Only your best two round scores count towards your points total, although you’ll be ranked by only your best round across R1-3.
If you’re not familiar with the format of the Gran Turismo World Series, it’s essentially a more formal and longer-format championship than the Daily Races. For the Manufacturers Cup you’ll need to select a brand to represent, which will lock you into that manufacturer for the four-race season and loan you a Gr.3 and a Gr.4 car for use — though you can use any appropriate car from that marque.
When you choose to enter the series (whether before the first round or the last) you’re assigned into a “League” appropriate to your DR rank. Players who hold a Driver Rating of A or A+ go into GT1 League, those with a DR of B are placed into GT2 League, and drivers at C and lower slot into GT3 League. You’ll remain in that League regardless of any changes to your DR in that time.
The points awarded for each race are determined by the average Driver Rating score of the players in any given lobby, so GT1 lobbies will be worth more — far more — than GT3 ones. In each race, the winner gets the most points, with each position behind them worth around 5% fewer points. While a victory in a GT1 League race could be worth around 475 points, GT3 races with low D-ranked players could well only award single figures for a win.
Whichever League you race in, there’s some good credits available for taking part. You’ll receive a bonus according to your overall ranking within your league, with prizes for ranking in your primary and secondary geographical areas, region, and manufacturer.
Even at GT3, a sweep of golds in these four categories (for being in the top 5%) would be worth 3,000,000cr, so just taking part in a couple of races can get you a decent return for your time!
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