Japanese driver Takuma Miyazono has claimed his second Nations Cup title in the Gran Turismo World Series World Finals in Amsterdam, producing another tactical masterclass in the grand final.
The top four drivers were almost impossible to separate going into the final live event of the season, with just one World Series point covering leader Kylian Drumont from the joint-second racers of Miyazono, Jose Serrano, and Valerio Gallo.
That meant, with 48 points available on the evening across three races, there was still all to play for.
Qualifying
The qualifying session was a truly unique affair as the 12 finalists did battle in some of Gran Turismo 7’s licence tests!
Grid order, and car selection seeding for the first race, would be determined by the aggregate times from five tests in the Master Licence International B section: IB-2, IB-3, IB-6, IB-8, and IB-10. Miyazono would come out on top here, beating Gallo by just over 0.6s in total — or around 0.125s per licence test.
Race 1: Trial Mountain
With the drivers now in their chosen road cars — tuned to around 1,000hp — it was time for the first qualifying race with 12 points on the line for the winner.
Although he had first choice of cars, Miyazono wasn’t having the best time here. Gallo, in a Honda NSX (what else?) passed midway through lap one, as the Italian driver/Japanese car combination outstripped the Japanese driver/Italian car.
That also left him vulnerable to Serrano in the ferocious Mercedes-AMG GT Black, and it was all over by the relocated tunnel hairpin on lap four as the Spanish driver cruised past. Serrano would close up on Gallo at the front but couldn’t make the final move for the win.
Takuma Sasaki came back from almost nowhere to take fourth in his 911, behind countryman Miyazono, while Drumont and Coque Lopez had a race-long battle to end fifth and sixth.
Race 2: Monza
The second race had been left “TBA”, and we were all expecting that to mean new content. It turned out that we were right and wrong: it wasn’t the Hyundai IONIQ 5N we’d been expecting, but a brand-new, F1-inspired fictional car called the Gran Turismo F3500-A.
Monza would be the venue for this screaming V10 (we assume) battle, and Serrano would be immediately in the wars as he was run out wide by Miyazono exiting the first chicane. Gallo too would be in strife, although it appeared to be through a self-inflicted error on the exit of second Lesmo. A later incident, involving Guy Barbara and Coque Lopez, saw the Italian caught up and halt his progress yet further.
Entering the pit window, Serrano would unexpectedly go a lap longer on the soft tires, having caught up to the front two, and this proved a deciding factor as he’d emerge from his own stop ahead of on-track leader Miyazono. Drumont though was on the opposite strategy and nearly made the tire advantage work to claim second between winner Serrano and Miyazono.
Grand Final: Nurburgring 24h
That left the points still very tight, with Serrano holding a five-point lead over Drumont and Gallo and knowing that a second-place finish would be enough — and he was starting on pole position. However, seven laps of the Nurburgring 24h circuit were between the drivers and the checkered flag, and the Red Bull X2019 Competition was the chosen vehicle…
As ever, the drivers were required to use all three tire compounds during the race — meaning it was likely there’d be two two-lap and one three-lap stint each — and sluggish refueling would mean that fuel saving could be a major factor too.
Serrano started on the softs, which has been a strategy we’ve seen work very well for a lot of finals: sprinting out to a huge lead and defending it to the end. With the Nordschleife’s average width of just six yards, it seemed like a solid plan.
It looked to be working too, with Serrano up by ten seconds come the second-lap pit stop — though the softs were looking distinctly second-hand at this point — and the three medium-shod racers behind sticking close together.
Much of the grid seemed to have the same idea, in leaving the hards until last, but Miyazono went for the hard option and — courtesy of fuel-saving in the slipstream — leap-frogged his immediate rivals in the pits. Takuma Sasaki meanwhile was going long, taking a fourth lap on the mediums.
Serrano’s middle stint was torrid though. He’d earn a couple of small but significant penalties — one for tripping over Robert Heck through the pit cycle and one for cutting the final GP circuit chicane. That would bring, once everything had shaken out, Drumont and de Bruin on the soft tires back up to the front.
It seemed like de Bruin had done a stellar job saving fuel as he came in with nine liters more than Drumont, and took three liters less to jump to the effective race lead. The front three were now on their final, hard tires though, with Miyazono closing out the last two laps on softs.
The 14-second gap from first (Sasaki excluded, as he ran out of sequence) to Miyazono seemed like rather too much, but he took nine seconds out on the first tour and then passed Serrano at the GP course’s hairpin and scythed past Drumont in a stunning move at the chicane.
That would, if Serrano didn’t pass Drumont, be enough for the title, but Miyazono was still closing on de Bruin at the front. With the second lap more difficult on worn softs, it took until mid-way down the Dottinger Hohe for him to take the lead for the first time and from there he drove to victory.
But there was more to come behind. It appeared that de Bruin had pushed his fuel too far and almost run dry, with the Dutch driver coming to almost a crawl at Hohenrain. Drumont, Serrano, and Gallo arrived on scene at full-speed with nowhere to go, resulting in some mayhem. Serrano ended up in the wall, and Gallo almost in the Nordschleife pit lane, while Drumont came through largely unscathed for second place.
Miyazono is now the most successful driver in GT World Series history, with two Manufacturers Cup titles for Subaru in 2020 and 2022, two Nations Cup titles in 2020 and 2024, and the Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup win also in 2020.
That’s not quite the end of the season though, as there’ll be a special Race of Champions event later this month, to be broadcast on January 1 2025.
Nations Cup Grand Final Race Results
- 1. Takuma Miyazono (Japan) – Red Bull X2019 Competition – 7 laps
- 2. Kylian Drumont (France) – Red Bull X2019 Competition – +3.423s
- 3. Kaj de Bruin (Netherlands) – Red Bull X2019 Competition – +5.972s
Manufacturer Cup Final Points Standings
- 1. Takuma Miyazono (Japan) – 50 points
- 2. Kylian Drumont (France) – 47 points
- 3. Jose Serrano (Spain) – 42 points
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