Circuit de la Sarthe

After weeks of teasers, leaks, and speculation, the highly anticipated “May” update for Gran Turismo Sport is finally here. It brings with it one of the world’s most popular circuits, nine new cars, new GT League events, and a flurry of other adjustments and bug-fixes.

When it comes to the world’s most iconic tracks, there’s not much that gets close to the Circuit de la Sarthe.

Following an impressive showing in the Asian Le Mans Series, GT Academy finalist Edgar Lau is due to race at Le Mans next weekend.

It’s time for one of the biggest races in the 2015 GTPlanet Endurance Series’ calendar: the 24 Hours of Le Mans! The race kicks off today (June 27) at 13:00 GMT/UTC (click here to convert this to your local time), and will be live-streamed right here via GTPlanet’s YouTube channel.

This is it! There’s just a few days left in the final round of GT Academy 2015, and it’s proving to be one of the most challenging in the program’s history, as players wrangle the Nissan GT-R LM around a Circuit de la Sarthe invaded by cones.

As you’ve probably heard by now, GT Academy winner Lucas Ordoñez and his teammates Franck Mailleux and Soheil Ayari drove an incredible race at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. Despite two unfortunate tire punctures, they pushed their Signatech Oreca Nissan back up through the field of LMP2 cars – all the way to a second place class finish in the world’s toughest endurance race.

To help get you in the spirit for next month’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, Polyphony Digital has just pushed out a new Seasonal Event in Gran Turismo 5 with a focus on everything French. The championship runs across five different circuits and, of course, must be driven in a French car with 500PP or less:

Just when you thought you’d explored every nook and cranny of GT5 Prologue and finally laid the game to rest, it’s back from the dead with one more surprise up its sleeve: a super-secret “Special” menu. As revealed by @Mathieulh on Twitter, the Special menu gives you access to lots of hidden features. Notably, it shows several more tracks in the game such as the Nurburgring Nordschleife, Circuit de la Sarthe, and Tsukuba (though they can’t actually be selected). You can make all the cars available, create a race and specify the make and model of each of your opponents, tinker with visible menu options, and more.

Thanks to Planete-GT, who already have their hands on a copy of the game!

The video may be in Italian, but you don’t have to speak the language to appreciate this interesting gameplay footage from TGS 2010. Check the time stamp references below so you catch all of the different clips:

Videos from the most recent build of the game shown at Gamescom 2010.

Take a look at the first two video clips of the Gran Turismo 5 demo running track-side at this past weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. Thanks to our friends at French GT5rs.com for the footage!

The first pictures from the Le Mans 2010 GT5 trackside demo are trickling in, and it’s very good to see Peugeot Team Sport’s 908 HDi FAP in its 2010 livery is playable on La Sarthe! Six-time WRC world champion and GT super-fan Sébastien Loeb is also on-hand at the Sony booth, and has set a 3’33.820 around the track in the 908. Expect more pictures, videos, and impressions very soon. Thanks to EvilNeal for the tip!

An email sent from Sony to some of our French users confirms that Circuit de la Sarthe will be shown off in the Gran Turismo 5 demo running at the company’s track-side PS3 booth. Roughly translated, the last line reads, “Come see an ultra realistic virtual preview of the mythical track of the 24H of Mans!” Some of our friends at GT5rs will be in attendance at the race, so expect some fresh game-play footage this weekend!

With the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race coming up the weekend of June 12-13, Sony has re-affirmed their interest in motorsport with title sponsorship of Team Peugeot Sport. Of course, the PlayStation and Gran Turismo brand has been prominently connected with the event for several years now, with highly-visible banner placement around the Mulsane chicanes. This year, though, with the pending release of GT5, they’ve got more reason than ever to support the big race. Here’s the Sony France press release, via GT5rs (thanks to Vidor for the tip!):