The final WRS championship of 2015 is at its penultimate juncture, with the fourth of five races starting today. Above, you can catch the live stream (care of staff member and racer @PASM), kicking off at 20:00 GMT/UTC.

The way has been paved for the final car pack of the year as revealed in the 7.0 Update for Project CARS that went live yesterday, and Slightly Mad Studios are looking to end the year in a mad dash with the Renault Sport Car Pack coming to the game Tuesday, December 22nd.

Ghost Games weren’t kidding around about injecting the new Need For Speed with considerable fan service. Whatever your opinion may be on the arcade racer (see GTPlanet’s here), there’s no arguing that the franchise is one of the most well-known in the business. Spanning over two decades, with twenty-two (and counting) titles under its belt, there is a considerable history for the developers to draw from. With the Legends Update, that’s precisely what they’ve done.

The final major update of the year for Project CARS is upon us, and Slightly Mad Studios intends to end the year with a considerable bang and loud exhaust notes.

It’s the ninth week of our regular Track Of The Week article, and we’re changing gears. The last three circuits have been replicas of various world-famous venues (Road America, Serres Circuit, and, most recently, Portimao), while we’ve only had two fantasy tracks since the feature began nearly two months ago. The third to step into the spotlight is Melder’s Brook.

Shown earlier today, Kunos has pulled the cover off one of the stars in the upcoming Dream Pack 3, the Ford Escort RS 1600. Born from a partnership between Ford and Lotus in the late 60’s, the Escort was powered by a 1.6L Cosworth BDA Inline-4 which drove it to a number of rally and GT race victories.

Codemasters has released the most significant update for DiRT Rally yet, version 1.0, otherwise known as the ‘Winter Wonderland Pack’. The update ends the early access phase of DiRT rally, thus marking its official launch onto Steam.

The final WRS championship of 2015 is about to hit its mid-way point, with the third of five races starting today. Above, you can catch the live stream (care of staff member and racer @PASM), kicking off at 20:00 GMT/UTC.

Back in the summer, a 26-year old postal delivery driver took part in a little competition you may have heard of: GT Academy. This van-driving man – by the name of Matt Simmons – would go on to win the International Region GT Academy competition. In the article linked, we mentioned Simmons was entering the usual post-Academy 3-month training program that Nissan puts each winner through, in preparation for the Dubai 24 Hours race in January. That’s not the case anymore, however.

Earlier this year, Kunos Simulazioni confirmed work was being done to bring “the best circuit in the world”, Brands Hatch, to Assetto Corsa. Kunos have confirmed that Brands Hatch will be coming to the game alongside seven new rides in Dream Pack 3 due on December 15th.

When we first learned that developer Kunos Simulazioni would be bringing the highly-praised PC simulator Assetto Corsa to consoles in 2016 the very first question many expressed was “Are the physics going to be affected?”. That question was soon answered by Marco Massarutto, Licensing Project Manager at Kunos Simulazioni, exclaiming that the games physics would be given first priority and that the game had the same feelings, dynamism and force feedback of the PC version.

Here we are in December, days away from the two year anniversary of GT6, for the eighth iteration of GTPlanet’s Track Of The Week. It’s another real-world replica this week, as we travel to Portugal’s Algarve International Circuit (commonly referred to as simply Portimao).

Hidden among the 918 MB update earlier this week (that covered the inclusion of the Mobil 1 Car Pack, as well as numerous fixes to the game), Turn 10 has quietly snuck a Nissan Silvia into Forza Motorsport 6. Not the oft-requested S14 generation though: this is the first generation of the venerable nameplate, a model that only saw 554 units produced, all hand-built.

Update 1.25 is now available to download for Driveclub. Weighing in at 400MB the update introduces the Mercedes-AMG S 65 Coupé and the KTM 1290 Super Duke R as new accolade rewards, a new easy difficulty setting for all tour events, new options for private lobbies, and more based on the continuous feedback from the community.

A new batch of seasonal events are now available in Gran Turismo 6 showcasing this week’s super lap and drift trial challenges. The events feature classic European cars representative of the ‘golden age’ of motoring, race cars, 4WD non-race cars, and Japanese racing machines proving their worth.

Interestingly enough, forum member @Whistlesnap has found evidence of two cars being added to the game: the 2020 Vision Gran Turismo, and Toyota’s tiny S-FR. Both of these were on display at the Tokyo Motor Show back in October, and the S-FR was even playable in a special build of Gran Turismo 6.

This guest contribution is by Bryan Heitkotter, 2011 United States GT Academy Champion. As the first US GTA graduate, Bryan has driven a wide variety of vehicles over the years, from the wild Juke-R to the GT3 GT-R. He’s also shared the wheel with fellow GT Academy pupil Nick McMillen. Here, Bryan recounts his experience at the 2015 NISMO Festival.

Last month saw Ayrton’s dominating MP4/4 land in FM6, along with six other cars in the eBay Motors Car Pack (in addition to November’s free car, the NISMO GT-R LM). For December, variety is again the order of the day, with a little something for everyone. Two modern cars – one a bruising GT, the other an insane hypercar – are joined by two 90’s racers, a late 80’s Aussie homologation special, the last Ferrari to win overall at Le Mans, and a great big chunk of 50’s Americana.

Need For Speed launched at the beginning of the month to generally favourable reviews. In GTPlanet’s own review, the game’s limited customization features and the AI rubber-banding were two of the standout criticisms. The first patch, released last week, specifically addresses both of those issues, as well as adding more content to the game, free of charge.