Following yesterday’s action in the Manufacturers Cup, it’s time for the first official race of Nations Cup in the 2022 Gran Turismo World Series.
An individual competition rather than a team-based event, the Nations Cup will feature the 16 best drivers from the 2021 World Final battling in equal machinery to score the first points of the 2022 season — and the Gran Turismo 7 era.
Round 1 of World Series is the first of five stages of the event this season. Following this online event, the 16 drivers will advance to meet the 16 best from the online Series 1 in the World Series Showdown in a live event from Red Bull Hangar-7 in Salzburg, Austria.
The 16 best drivers from this event will qualify for the online Round 2 and Round 3, as well as the World Final in November 2022, where they’ll meet the 16 best qualifiers from the online Series 2.
In each of the five events, drivers will be able to score World Series points, with up to three available in the three online events, and up to six in the Showdown. The bulk of points — previously up to 12 in each of two semi-finals and 24 in the final — will come at the World Final, and whoever scores the most across the season will be crowned champion.
As you’d expect, the driver line-up is an all-star affair. Three of the four world champions take part, with defending champion Valerio Gallo returning eight months after his 2021 triumph, 2020 winner Takuma Miyazono fresh off yesterday’s Manufacturer Cup success, and 2018 champion Igor Fraga — who claimed a Manufacturer Series title in 2021 alongside Coque Lopez who also returns.
However, the new platform for the series, having shifted from Gran Turismo Sport to Gran Turismo 7 over the spring, may switch the order up a little. With only a few months to get used to the new game — and only a few weeks to get used to the new Watkins Glen circuit being used here — it will be more about who has hit the ground running the best rather than past form.
Some drivers have moved away from Gran Turismo in the interim too, for various reasons. That includes Angel Inostroza, who’s been showing some strong form in the ACC-based GT World Challenge Americas, scoring a class win at Kyalami earlier in the year.
Viewers will have a little more skin in the game this year through the “Bonus Campaign“. If you correctly guess who’s going to win this event, which you can do right up until the stream starts with a menu inside GT7, you will win 500,000cr for your game wallet.
As for the race itself, that will consist of a 15-lap run around Watkins Glen, using the new Suzuki Vision Gran Turismo Gr.3 car. It appears that drivers have free choice of Racing tire compounds, but must factor in a 6x tire wear rate — one lap generates six laps’ worth of wear.
Today’s stream will start at 1300 UTC and you’ll be able to watch it in full below:
Alternate Language Streams
Competitors
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