After a flurry of online competition earlier in the year, the time is now upon us for the first of 2023’s two championship-deciding live events at the Gran Turismo World Series Showdown in Amsterdam.
Surprisingly, given that Polyphony Digital has offices in the city, it’s the first time that Amsterdam has hosted a live Gran Turismo event. It’s quite the location too, with the waterfront Theater Amsterdam acting as the venue for the races.
This 45,000 square-foot auditorium venue has seating for around 800 people — and tickets are still available for each individual day as well as the event as a whole — with access by car, bike, public transport, and, thanks to its position overlooking the IJ river, boat.
Ticket holders will also be able to join GTPlanet each day during the event, at a special assembly point ahead of the racing action.
The event will actually start on the evening of Thursday August 10, with a special showing of the Gran Turismo movie hosted by Kazunori Yamauchi himself at the Pathe Koninklijk Theater Tuschinski in the city.
Yamauchi will be available for an audience Q&A afterwards along with GT Academy drivers including Jann Mardenborough — whose story inspired the film — and the original champion Lucas Ordonez, among others.
Friday August 11 will see a special GT Sophy exhibition event, with the latest iteration of the machine learning-trained AI agent racing off against top level Gran Turismo 7 drivers. That will then be followed by the Manufacturers Cup event, with the 12 qualified teams racing for vital World Series points.
It’s an unusual-looking line-up this year, with three rarely seen brands appearing at the finals. Both Lamborghini (2020) and McLaren (2022) will be appearing at only their second ever finals event, while Renault is making its debut.
Each team will consist of three drivers, and each is required to drive at least eight laps in the 35-lap race which takes place at Suzuka and uses the brands’ Gr.3 cars.
The Nations Cup final follows on Saturday August 12, after the intensely serious business of the Pro-Am event which will see members of the media, streamers, and influencers pairing off with finalists for a one-off race.
For 2023 there’s a new team format for Nations, very similar to that used in Manufacturers. Each finalist country has three representatives and each will be required to drive the regular Gran Turismo X2019 Competition car once during the final — a 30-lap race at Autodrome Lago Maggiore.
Notably there’ll be a qualifying time trial session at Grand Valley Highway 1 in the Ferrari Vision Gran Turismo, followed by a qualification race of an as-yet unspecified format and car/track combination…
Each event will be marked by an absence though. 2022 Nations Cup runner-up, Angel Inostroza will be missing from both his Chile and Porsche squads following injuries sustained in a road accident last month and will not be substituted.
As with the World Final in Monaco last year, there’ll be special events connected to the Showdown available through in-game tiles and offering rewards.
The Predict the Winners campaign invites you to select one Manufacturers Cup team and one Nations Cup team that you think will come away from Amsterdam victorious. Getting either one correct will win you a million credits — two million for the pair — and you have until the races start each day to make your choice, so you can even watch qualifying first.
Just watching the streams is enough to earn you rewards in the Viewers Gift campaign. Click on the tiles in the top-right corner of the World Map screen to view the streams each day and you’ll win a special Roulette Ticket to give you an engine reward for Manufacturers Cup and early access to the Toyota Ambulance Himedic for Nations.
You’ll be able to catch the Manufacturers Cup from 1700UTC on Friday August 11, with the Nations Cup starting at 1700UTC on Saturday August 12 — and watch out for our dedicated preview articles for both events!
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