If you want to become an Olympic champion in racing games, the road starts here with the Gran Turismo 7 Olympic Esports Series Time Trial.
The event is open for the next ten days, closing at 2359 UTC on Sunday May 7, and if you’re one of the top eligible players when the checkered flag falls you’ll earn a trip to Singapore this summer to compete for an Olympic title at the Olympic Esports Week.
It’s the second time that Gran Turismo has been one of the games featured in the Olympic Esports series, with GT Sport hosting the online time trials and finals in the original Olympic Virtual Series event. That saw Valerio Gallo becoming the first ever champion, in what was a very successful year for the Italian driver.
This year’s competition has some slightly complicated rules but in essence it’s pretty simple. You’ll need to be one of the top ten eligible drivers — 18 years of age or older (21+ in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) — in one of the 66 territories to qualify through the online time trial. This is also limited to one person per country.
A further ten players from an additional 73 countries will be directly selected by their representative motorsport organizing bodies (though it’s not clear how these will be whittled down), with the 20 finalists racing in a live pre-qualifying event in Singapore for 11 finals spots. They’ll be joined by a driver selected by Motorsport Singapore for a 12-player final.
The Time Trial, open now inside Sport Mode in Gran Turismo 7 — you’ll need to complete Menu Book 9 (“Championship: Tokyo Highway Parade”) in GT Cafe to unlock it — consists of a hot lap of Deep Forest Raceway in a Toyota GR010 bearing a special livery and on Racing Medium tires.
However you don’t need to post one of the top times in order to enjoy the event. Come within 1.5% of the best time in the world when the Time Trial closes and you’ll win four million credits, with two million available for being within 5%, and 500,000cr for being within 20%.
See more articles on Olympic Games.
