Monaco F1 Circuit in Gran Turismo 5, Yamauchi Interview

Car Magazine has just posted a new interview with Kazunori Yamauchi, as part of their big feature on the Red Bull X1 Prototype. It’s a good read (keep in mind it was conducted before the delay), but the most interesting revelation actually comes from a small new screenshot included in the article, taken from inside the X1’s cockpit at the Monaco F1 circuit.

Of course, the track is not new to the series – it first appeared in GT3 as “Cote d’Azur” (renamed, presumably, for licensing reasons), and it’s good to know it’s back for GT5. The screenshot is taken from the turn-out of the Grand Hotel Hairpin, one of the tightest, slowest, and most famous corners in Formula 1 (here’s a real-world photo of the hotel in the background, along with a screenshot from the same location in GT PSP). The article also included another new shot of the X1 passing the Colosseum at Rome:

Thanks to everyone in our forums for picking up on this!

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Comments (83)

  1. Chris

    Yeah looks fast and all but it isn’t real… it looks “easy” (boring) to drive like the F2007 and GTR was in prologue IMHO. I would have twice as much fun in a street car with RWD and a proper manual gearbox, which is what I love Gran Turismo for. If I wanted to take corners unrealistically fast, I would just pop in Midnight Club.

  2. jimbo

    ………does a tour of the world, gets everyone on the edges of their seats but never touches down.

    either land that damned apollo or die trying, thats what i say. thank you and good night.

  3. DarthTurismo

    Bring back Grindewald, tahiti road and rome night from GT2!! i miss those awesome tracks… they would be sick in GT5!

  4. arda_tirmas

    “As a result, GT5 became an extremely large and complex project, almost like the Apollo Space Programme” OMG!

    1. jimbo

      ………does a tour of the world, gets everyone on the edges of their seats but never touches down.
      either land that damned apollo or die trying, thats what i say. thank you and good night.

  5. Spaghettimonster

    i just hope they dont rush the tracks and make sure, theyre amazing. its kind of weird that this kind of info seems to come out of nowhere and in rather small bits.

    1. Hoodie

      Just as well really isn’t it? Imagine if we’d known all this two years ago? No speculation, no getting excited over the smallest detail. We’d have to talk about what we had for tea and stuff, Jordan et al would see their families more and we’d probably all end up falling out through sheer boredom.

      Hurrah for the drip-drab approach I say!

    1. Hoodie

      Has it not been released yet? I wasn’t sure what with people never mentioning it, day in day out. May I suggest contacting PD instead with your gripes as there is only one thing worse than waiting for the game and that is people whining about ‘waiting for the game’.

      And don’t get me started on the adding of ‘already’ at the end of sentences!

  6. LordVonPS3

    @ Jordan.

    Referring to your title “Monaco F1 circuit in GT5″… I think it’s important to take note that one screen, or indeed even a whole video – does NOT serve as evidence that the Monaco circuit will be in GT5. It is merely evidence that they have the asset (which we already knew) but it could still be work in progress as far as KY is concerned. We may have to wait until GT6 for Monaco. It’s fine to have one’s hopes up, or even to have expectations, but it’s worth keeping in mind that until it’s actually confirmed – it isn’t.

    1. occasionalracer

      Sure nothing is for certain until confirmed, but seeing a snapshot of PD’s X1 on that circuit in HD can only mean it’s been re-created in higher res. and therefore wouldn’t just have been used as a background to show off the car. That would be terribly misleading and it’s hard to believe that the track wouldn’t be included.

    2. Jordan

      I consider any car or track shown in GT5 media to be “confirmed”. Pedantically, yes, that may be wreckless. However, I believe requiring explicit, written proof of a car or track’s inclusion is an unreasonably conservative threshold for “confirmation”, especially given the casual nature and topic of this blog.

  7. GoldUltima

    Kind of a side note I’d like to bring up……I hope that GT5 allows you to pick if your car’s top is down or not. It actually bothers me to see an S2000 with it’s top down sof instance, considering it’s less aerodynamic when it is….

  8. Mattycakes

    I just want that RedBull helmet :D

    Do you guys think it will be the track we are used to, or the F1 GP specific track? Very little difference, but it would still be nice to be more realistic.

  9. Spaghettimonster

    if anybody is interested the x1/monaco screen above actually comes from the “gt5 dubstep trailer” on youtube. dont think i have seen it anywhere else before.

  10. Stune

    Good news for sure. Until we get that precious official track list we will no doubt be kept wondering about a few tracks yet.

  11. ken_b

    Sweet news! Man will we be happy peeps when this game is finally delivered! Perhaps you’ll be able to remove the canopy of the X1? I’d like to assume that the mention of a release during the first week of december is a glimmer of hope….regardless, and as usual, I’d like to say…just make the announcement Sony/PD., stop bogarding!!

  12. J.B.

    The first pic is clearly the X1…The detail of the instrument panel (The silver “x” looking piece) is also visible is the head on shot we’ve seen posted.

    I think we have two options for this car. The X1 we’ve already seen with the canopy up…I don’t think can be raced, but only used in some sort of time trial or by itself on the track. There are no mirrors and I still don’t know if the covered wheels would allow it to make stops (I know we’ve seen cars in the past in real life, but this would require its own pit animation which I don’t think we’ll see)…The other is when the canopy is off, I’d bet we will see mirrors added and the wheel covers removed…possibly some addition aero modifications as well?

  13. EiFFeL

    Monaco was there in GT4 also…

    I buy that magazine monthly (Spanish edition), so I hope that interview to be in November’s magazine :)

  14. VYPA-SQUAD_Ace

    “The fifth instalment of the Gran Turismo PlayStation epic has slipped back from 5 November, probably to the first week of December 2010.”

    This would be awesome if it was released the first week of December, but I wouldn’t bet on it. I’m just gonna sit back and play NFS Shift until it’s released.

    1. HugoStiglitz_420

      try Ferrari Challenge. It was $15 and it’s physics are in between GT5P’s standard and pro physics, and I guarantee that you’ll agree. FC’s physics are better than forza or shifts I kid you not

  15. bucketseat

    Read the article…on line.
    When Kaz said his favorite track/car combo was the Nurmberg & the Ferrari it made me wonder why there are so many stinkin’ Skylines etc in the previous GT versions.
    Sure would like Sony/PD to throw us a freakin’ bone and tell us when we’re going to be able to be ‘surprised’ by the game.
    So far in GT5 my favorite is the little oval in Italy with the Fiat driven by the Japanese girl.

    1. grog

      Well Kaz has previously said that the Skyline, GT-R and all its variations inspired him to create the Gran Turismo series to be able to explore all these varients. So you have to give credit to them (the GT-R’s and Skylines) for paving the way for better things.

      Plus ferrari’s licsencing probably isn’t cheap!

    1. dantheflyinman95

      @gast1976- That would be soooooo cool to have an accident where someone accidentally hits the wall and then a caution flag comes out because they need to clear the rubble

    1. Shokz

      @Sigma – It creates a fragmented userbase. I’d certainly be willing to pay for DLC, but only if it’s reasonably substantial and it’s clear that they’ve created it in the months following the main release, not something they potentially could have included with the game.

    2. GoldUltima

      Yeah, I hate getting more content in my games that is purely optional. Hell, they should slowly take stuff out of the game over time. That’d be good.

    3. Sigmaviper11

      @Shokz- can you clarify please. I’m vaguely understanding but not really.

      So it’d be ok if in like a year and a half, GT came out with DLC featuring cars and tracks that on release they hadn’t built, but not ok if say, ferrai is supposed to be in the game but instead they sell it as DLC. That part makes sense. Fragmented userbase part, went over my head.

    4. HugoStiglitz_420

      I agree with Sigma. DLC only enhances the game after you already own it. Sure, some developers abuse it just to make more money but I can’t see GT5 doing that and even if they did, do you want to be the jerk-off who doesn’t have all the cars in GT5? because I don’t. There are so many cars and maybe tracks that had to be passed over to save time for this game, I want those cars. and MOST IMPORTANTLY, WE NEED THE STANDARD CARS UPGRADED TO PREMIUM! how else are they going to do that? if they don’t, it will forever be a huge flaw in the game. The whole idea of standard cars is rather pathetic and it can be corrected. It’s important that it is corrected

    5. DrTrouserPlank

      “There are so many cars and maybe tracks that had to be passed over to save time for this game, I want those cars. and MOST IMPORTANTLY, WE NEED THE STANDARD CARS UPGRADED TO PREMIUM! how else are they going to do that?”

      In a large £35 patch called GT6.

  16. moxlox

    Interesting that in the top picture the car doesn’t have a cockpit canopy as it does in all the other shots we’ve seen.

    1. Sigmaviper11

      Good point. Maybe its removable. Like a convertable top? I was about to say maybe the picture was taken from within it, but if that was the case, there should be reflections or some sort of glare. Good eye.

    2. Gork

      Rendering reflections on the glass of a car when the view is from inside of the car is a really, really bad idea. Trust me, you would not want this in a game.

    3. Sigmaviper11

      Ya know what? You have a good point. The game would lag horribly. Also I noticed that Neither prologue, nor any of the trailers feature interior reflection. If they do I haven’t noticed then. Oops.

    1. Mark Webber

      Where did guys get to this year?
      Did you even finish the race… its pretty hard to use my mirrors on this tight track! ;)

  17. robert

    be fun in any road car but try it in the polyphony digital race car let alone the new red bull car in conjunction with kaz !!!!

    1. dantheflyinman95

      We need less of people like you online. Grid online is just annoying and stupid, due to all of the people who try to ruin races…

    2. IVKillerVI

      I like how everyone assumes he literally meant crush.
      I’m not saying he didn’t mean that literally but you shouldn’t assume anything like that.
      He could have meant crush as in beat, kind of like when you say you kicked someones ass, you didn’t literally kick them in the ass.

    1. HugoStiglitz_420

      agreed. Spa and Silverstone would be great. I would be very happy. i’m really happy about this though too

    2. Hoodie

      I thought the ring was his favourite track?

      Would love Silverstone to be in there though. It’ll have to be the new version though!

    1. Bernd

      You can tell it’s the X1, because there’s that silver, u-shaped device in front of the steering-wheel (HU-display possibly) and you can see the wheel-cover of the righz rear-wheel

    2. GreyFox666

      Ima go with HN7 on this one.. If you look closely you can tell the glass is there… just look at the edge where the glass comes up from and the buildings behind it.. But i still think it might be possible to remove the canopy..

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