With the Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup completed, and Spanish dominance emerging, it’s soon going to be time for the Manufacturers Cup which gets underway at 1800UTC today.
This team-based event sees the best players from each of the three Gran Turismo regions (Americas, Asia-Oceania, and Europe/Middle East/Africa) turn out to represent their chosen manufacturer. In total there’s 12 brands qualified, consisting of the best nine from the online events plus the series partners of Genesis, Mazda, and Toyota.
It’s a little different in format this year, with only one race on the schedule after an interesting “superpole” format which will see the teams whittled down, session-by-session, at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in the brands’ Gr.3 cars.
All 12 teams will take part in the first qualifying session, with the slowest three eliminated and set into starting positions 10-12. The teams must then switch drivers — and the mandatory tire swaps also — for the second qualification session, again with the slowest three eliminated and set into starting positions 7-9.
That leaves the final six for the superpole shoot-out, with the tires changing again and a swap to the teams’ third drivers to set the top six starting positions.
It’s then a 20-lap endurance format race, with the teams required to run each tire and each driver during the race. While there’s an enormous 24 points available for taking the race win, it won’t necessarily be the race winner that takes the title as the teams’ “World Series” points from the races in Montreal, Prague, and Tokyo will be taken into account.
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
Even though Lexus is in the lead right now — and will be dealing with a driver swap from multiple world champion Igor Fraga to Harald Walsen — it really could be anybody’s title, and there’s some seriously strong teams this year.
We’d be keeping an eye on two outrageously strong squads, at Team Subaru and Team Mazda. The trio of Takuma Miyazono — himself a two-time Manufacturers winner with the same team — alongside Kylian Drumont and Angel Inostroza is phenomenal. We’ve also just seen Ryota Kokubun — a defending Manufacturers champion — and Pol Urra performing very well in the Toyota event, and Robbie Heck is due a bit of luck too.
The closest rival to Lexus after the World Tour is Porsche. It’s only four points back — the difference between first and second in the grand final — and it’s kept its three-driver team of Benjamin Hencsei, Arthur Mosso, and Takuma Sasaki intact for the finals. Could it be the first ever non-Japanese brand to win the title? We wouldn’t rule it out.
Races
- Qualifying – Gr.3, Nurburgring 24hr
- Qualifying Race – Gr.3, Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya GP (No Chicane)
- Grand Final – Gr.3, Nurburgring 24hr
You can also receive in-game rewards with two special tie-in campaigns accessible through the World Map menu in GT7.
Watching any amount of the stream through the in-game portal will complete an entry for the Viewers Gift — look out for the “Watch Stream (Entry Available)” button to change to “Watch Stream (Entry Submitted)” — which will be a vehicle. We don’t know which one yet as it depends on which team wins, but it’ll be the Gr.3 car from that brand.
You’ve got until 0900 UTC on Monday December 16 to do that, though you can get the reward earlier — on December 10 — if you click through before 1500 UTC on Monday December 9.
More pressing on time is the Predict the Winner campaign. You’ll need to try and guess which team will come out on top in the championship (not necessarily the final race, but probably), and you have until the final race starts to do so — which allows you to watch qualifying first to get a handle on form.
Correctly predicting the winning manufacturer will earn you a 1,000,000cr ticket, which will be delivered at a later date — that we assume will also be December 10.
The racing begins today, Saturday December 7, at 1800 UTC (convert to your time here) and we wish all of the competitors the best of luck!
Additional Language Streams
- French language stream
- Italian language stream
- Japanese language stream
- Portuguese language stream
- Spanish language stream
- Live Timing
Competitors
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