Gran Turismo World Series Tokyo: Lexus and Drumont Back on Top

The final preliminary live event of the 2024 Gran Turismo World Series has seen Team Lexus and France’s Kylian Drumont make a return to the top step of the podium.

Tokyo’s stop on the tour would be the last chance for drivers to pick up points going into the World Final, with all four events being contested by the same 12 racers in the Nations Cup and the same 12 brands in Manufacturers Cup.

As those points will carry through to the final and every one of them could make the difference between carrying home the famous trophy or not, it was set to be a fraught evening as both championship races took place over the course of four and a half hours.

Gran Turismo World Series Tokyo: Manufacturers Cup

After a poor result in the wet at Red Bull Ring back in August, Lexus returned to form at Mount Panorama. Kanata Kawakami — part of the brand’s surprise world champions in the inaugural season — stuck the RC F GT3 on pole position, beating pre-event favorite Takuma Miyazono in the Subaru, with defending world champion Ryota Kokubun placing third in the Mazda RX-Vision GT3 Concept.

With all three grades of tire required and passing places at a premium on the tight, walled Bathurst course, Kawakami was the only driver to make his start on the soft tire and immediately made that count as he streaked out to a five-second lead in the opening six laps.

That was aided by a rare mistake from Miyazono exiting turn two, which saw the Subaru kiss the outside wall and drop back two positions. Kokubun found himself promoted to second, but was soon passed by Soki Nabetani (Honda) courtesy of the tire differential.

With Kawakami pitting on very worn softs (particularly at the front), Nabetani and Tomoaki Yamanaka (Toyota) would inherit the lead as the only cars not yet to stop, while Miyazono was already making his second trip through pit road for his final mandatory set of mediums — unsurprisingly returning in last.

As the two leaders finally pitted — both selecting soft tires — Kawakami would return to the lead, and with the majority of cars now on mediums the race positions were largely neutralized. However he’d still have the slowest hard tire to contend with at the end of the race, while most of those chasing would have medium or soft remaining.

Given how much of the field opted for a very short stint on the hards at race start — two or three laps for the most part — it was a surprise then that Kawakami came in with six laps remaining to take the final required set and it would seem almost certain that the chasing Miyazono on mediums would overhaul the five-second margin.

That wasn’t to prove the case though as the rather old tires on the Subaru, already seven laps into their life, made forward progress difficult. In fact over the remaining laps, Miyazono was only able to claw out a further 2.8 seconds and the tires were all-but finished at that point.

Further back Kokubun and Suzuki’s race-long battle was settled in favor of the BMW driver in a pair of turn two incidents that first saw Suzuki overtake the Mazda around the outside before Kokubun attempted to repay it next lap round and ended up running off as the cars leaned on each other.

A second win of the season for Lexus gives the team a healthy advantage at the top of the table, as previous top team Porsche failed to register a point this time round. BMW’s pair of podiums in the last two races propels the squad up to third, ahead of consistent points-scorer Mazda.

Manufacturers Cup Grand Final Results

1 – Team Lexus (Kanata Kawakami) – Lexus RC F GT3 – 22 laps
2 – Team Subaru (Takuma Miyazono) – Subaru BRZ GT300 – +2.281s
3 – Team BMW (Seiya Suzuki) – BMW M6 GT3 – +3.816s

Manufacturers Cup Standings (After Three Rounds)

1 – Team Lexus (Fraga, Kawakami, Lopez) – 13 points
2 – Team Porsche (Hencsei, Mosso, Sasaki) – 9 points
3 – Team BMW (Labouteley, Roach, Suzuki) – 8 points
4 – Team Mazda (Heck, Kokubun, Urra) – 7 points
5 – Team Ferrari (Buhdeima, Hashima, Regalado) – 6 points
6 – Team Honda (Estevez, Gallo, Nabetani)- 6 points

Gran Turismo World Series Tokyo: Nations Cup

Three rounds, three pole positions for Takuma Miyazono, as the 2020 world champion just edged out compatriot and namesake Takuma Sasaki in the X2019s at Grand Valley.

That was only the first hurdle though, setting the grid for the sprint Qualifying Race which saw a return to the tuned production car format we saw back in Montreal. However, the power and speed was turned up quite a bit as the event took on a wangan-style look with the 12 selected cars tuned up to 1,000hp for the enormous straight at Tokyo Expressway East.

Naturally this became a slipstream battle soon enough, as Miyazono and Sasaki traded places throughout the race — and even before the first turn. The high speeds were enough to catch a lot of these very experienced drivers out though, with a slipstream good for a boost of around 20mph necessitating early braking.

That meant few even made turn one on lap one, but there was more to come. Defending double-champion Coque Lopez was the first to make a major error, with his R34 Skyline plowing into the back of 2023 team-mate Serrano’s Mercedes-AMG GT Black with thankfully little effect except to himself.

With the top six covered by fractions of a second, something was bound to give and it was a surprise that it came as an unforced error from rapid Dutch driver Kaj de Bruin. His R32 Skyline nailed the outside barrier into the turn one bottleneck and speared across the track.

All this mayhem brought Valerio Gallo up to the front of the field for the final lap, but while his NSX was so agile through the second sector it was hampered by final corner traction. Miyazono, never outside the top three all race, had no such issues and dragged up alongside the 2021 champion to win by three thousandths of a second.

That would put Miyazono on pole for the main event, back in the X2019s at Grand Valley, with Gallo and Sasaki behind, and the he’d be the only driver to select the soft tire to start. The back five meanwhile would opt for hards, with all but Robbie Heck choosing to go one and done with a first-lap stop for mediums.

While Miyazono quickly built a lead, he came unstuck a little with another uncharacteristic error. He’d clip the outside wall in the awkward second sector and pick up an automatic one-second penalty in the process. This tiny error may have ended up his undoing, as he opted to pit at the end of that lap and — crucially — did not pick up any fuel.

It wasn’t immediately apparent though, as Miyazono resumed his position as effective leader among those who’d pitted, and becoming the leader on track when others made their stops too. However, given the high consumption rate of around six liters a lap and the very slow refueling rate, the role that fuel would play became more and more obvious as the race drew on.

Having started virtually at the back of the pack, it was 2022 Showdown winner and Olympic champion Kylian Drumont who was making the biggest steps forward. Courtesy of some middle-stint fuel saving he was able to leap past some of those who started near him and on the same hard option, coming out of the pits for the second time round as the leading driver no longer needing to stop.

The overall picture of the race came more into focus when Miyazono was effectively forced to stop by a lack of fuel, coming in for his final stop and the slowest hard tire compound some seven laps from home. Though he would emerge in the effective lead, it was with just an eight-second advantage over the French driver.

It took barely four laps for Drumont to carve that down to nothing and make the pass into the bottom hairpin, assuming the on-track lead as Gallo and Calen Roach had yet to make their final stops at the front. With both diving in for the shortest possible hard stint at the end, that gave Drumont the lead.

Miyazono then lost a further spot to Jose Serrano, as the joint-champion from 2023 used a similar tire difference to get past on the penultimate lap — but it wasn’t quite all finished yet. The soft tires on the lead two cars were now wearing heavily and approaching unusuable territory, allowing Miyazono to keep up on much fresher hard tires.

Had the race gone on another lap, it’s probable that there’d be a different outcome, but Drumont was able to hold on for the win from Serrano by just under 1.4 seconds, with Miyazono only a further 0.4 seconds behind.

The championship is now very finely poised with the top four separated by just a single point. Drumont’s win propels him to the top on 11 points, backing up the podium finish in Prague, while Miyazono, Gallo, and Serrano all now sit on ten points apiece. Former leader Lopez drops to fifth having failed to score for the first time this year.

Nations Cup Grand Final Results

1 – Kylian Drumont (France) – Red Bull X2019 Competition – 27 laps
2 – Jose Serrano (Spain) – Red Bull X2019 Competition – +1.398s
3 – Takuma Miyazono (Italy) – Red Bull X2019 Competition – +1.794s

Nations Cup Standings (After Three Rounds)

1 – Kylian Drumont (France) – 11 points
2 – Takuma Miyazono (Japan) – 10 points
3 – Valerio Gallo (Italy) – 10 points
4 – Jose Serrano (Spain) – 10 points
5 – Coque Lopez (Spain) – 8 points
6 – Kaj de Bruin (Netherlands) – 6 points

That’s the final action of the preliminary live events this year, with only one stop remaining: the World Final in Amsterdam in December. The drivers and teams will carry their points tallies into the finals, but with up to 12 points per race (and 24 points in the grand final) there’s still all to race for.

Tickets are on sale now for the event, which runs over three days from Friday December 6 through to Sunday December 8. It’ll begin with the Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup, which traditionally predicts the form in the flagship events, followed by the team-based Manufacturers Cup with all three representatives for each brand, and wrapping up with the Nations Cup racers.

We’ll see you there!