The prelude for the anticipated 2024 Gran Turismo World Series will be getting underway later this month, with Polyphony Digital announcing the third season of the interim Exhibition Series.
As with Season 2, which primarily ran in January, it’s another compact, four-race schedule in each of the two championships, and they’re running back-to-back again. It’s a pretty rapid-fire set too, with all eight rounds taking place in just 25 days.
That means there’ll be races every Wednesday and Saturday, beginning on February 28 and running through to the final round on March 23, with Nations Cup first and Manufacturers Cup following on. The full calendar is as follows:
GT World Series Nations Cup Exhibition Season 3
- Round 1 – February 28 – Gr.4 – Suzuka Circuit – 10 laps
- Round 2 – March 2 – Suzuki Cappuccino ’91 – Road Atlanta – 10 laps
- Round 3 – March 6 – Gr.2 – Sardegna Road Track A – 18/14 laps
- Round 4 – March 9 – Gr.3 – Interlagos – 25/18 laps
GT World Series Manufacturers Cup Exhibition Season 3
- Round 1 – March 13 – Gr.3/Gr.4 – Grand Valley Highway-1 – 10 laps
- Round 2 – March 16 – Gr.3/Gr.4 – Deep Forest Raceway – 22/16 laps
- Round 3 – March 20 – Gr.3 – Mount Panorama – 28/16 laps
- Round 4 – March 23 – Gr.3 – Nurburgring Endurance – 5/3 laps
Interestingly, there’s no gap at all on the schedule — which we’d ordinarily only see if there’s no content update planned — and nothing shrouded in the mystery of a “TBA”. That leaves the question of whether there’s a February update at all, or if PD plans to do anything significant to mark GT7’s second anniversary on March 4.
That aside, it’s a very race car-dominated set of races, with Gr.3 races exclusively in the GT1 League class in Manufacturers Cup — only GT2/GT3 Leagues will race the Gr.4 cars — and Gr.2, Gr.3, and Gr.4 races in Nations. Only a ten-lap race in Suzuki Cappuccino kei cars breaks up the sequence in Nations.
With the exception of the three ten-lap races, GT1 players will have longer and more tactical events across the board and particularly in Manufacturers R2 and Nations R3 which feature mandatory tires, and the mandatory pit stop in Nations R4. All GT1 races also feature Heavy mechanical damage, requiring a pit stop to fix, while all events except Nations R2 allow Brake Balance tuning only.
There’s ten slots for each round in GT2 and GT3 League, taking place across the bulk of daylight hours, while GT1 League players get just three in the evenings of the timezones roughly central to each region. As usual, only your last entered race for each round counts — even if you disconnect as score zero — and your best two rounds count towards your points total.
For newcomers to the Gran Turismo World Series, it’s a more formal and longer-format championship which groups players according to their Driver Rating and rewards points appropriate to it.
The moment you choose to enter the series you’re assigned a “League”. 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. This will not change during the season, regardless of any changes to your DR in that time.
Points 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. Naturally the winner gets the most, with each position getting around 5% fewer each time. A win in a GT1 League race could be worth around 475 points, while a GT3 race with low D-ranked players may only net single figures for a win.
Previous seasons have rewarded participating players with in-game credits according to their overall ranking within their league, with prizes for your ranking in your primary and secondary geographical areas, region, and manufacturer or country. This can be worth a few million credits, even in GT3, so it’s well worth getting a couple of races on the scoreboard!
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