Kyle Patrick

The updates keep on coming! Detailed earlier this week, the latest in the line of Need For Speed’s free content updates showed up this morning on both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles, weighing in at roughly 1gb for either camp.

What we’re looking at above is what could be the first official acknowledgement of Forza Horizon 3. Much as they did with Motorsport 6, Turn 10 has announced a cover car at a major automotive event, this time at the Palexpo during the Geneva Auto Show. Now we know why some of the studio’s higher-ups are on the ground in Switzerland…

We asked, and you answered. Last week, Track of the Week was opened to community suggestions, and the response was better than we could’ve even hoped. There are sixteen ribbons of tarmac waiting for players to enjoy, all plucked from the GTPlanet Track Database. You can drive any or all of them, but only one will get the TOTW title this weekend.

Hot on the heels of the news of PC-based Apex spin-off, Turn 10 unleashed the long-awaited Porsche Expansion Pack for Forza 6 today. The pack spans six decades of the storied marque’s history, from the 1955 550A Spyder to the Le Mans-winning 2015 919 Hybrid. It also ups the track count, introducing Virginia International Raceway to the lineup with seven different layouts, as well as both night and rain variations.

As the automotive world prepares for one of the biggest events on the calendar – the Geneva Motor Show, opening to the public this Thursday – Bugatti has taken an early lead in buzz by unveiling the dramatic new Chiron.

Week 20, here we are! For this, the final staff-selected TOTW (read up here on how you can help choose next week’s track), we’re moving away from the Death Valley setting of last week’s track to the woods of Vienna. Welcome to Wiener Höhenstraße. At least, the first part of it…

Community Bounty Hunter is a divisive topic in the land of Forza. While some welcome the challenge it provides, others are frustrated by the limitations imposed on game content through the event. Case in point: this month saw the feature return to the series, with a classic Aston Martin Vantage up for grabs (returning to the game after last being seen in Forza 4).

You may have noted a distinct lack of Track of the Week this… week. While #20 is indeed incoming – it will be live later today – we’re changing things up after that. That’s right: starting with TOTW21, each week’s track will be picked by you, dear readers.

Our friends over at CarThrottle have posted a new interview with 2011 GT Academy winner Jann Mardenborough. The 24-year old briefly recounts the series of events that lead to him climbing the top step of the podium, as well as what the experience has been like mixing it with racers of more traditional backgrounds out on the track.

Have you ever entered a racing series, only to lament your initial car selection? Sure, Car X looked so appealing during pre-season testing, but a few races in, you had eyes only for Car Y. It’s the classic green-grass scenario, really. The boys over at GTPlanet’s Weekly Race Series have solved the problem with Special Event XVI: why pick one of three cars, when you can just drive all of them instead?

Koenigsegg made waves last year at Geneva with the Regera. Billed as the “more luxurious” relation in the Koenigsegg family, the car had all sorts of impressive bullet-points. 1500 horsepower! Three electric motors! A single gear!

Death Valley isn’t the most popular environment amongst the track-making community. The unforgiving track barriers don’t help, and the desert setting doesn’t offer the elevation changes that Eifel and Andalusia can. But climbing and diving alone don’t make a track great: look at Sebring (our first TOTW recepient, actually). For the 19th week of this feature, we’ve got a relatively flat Death Valley track that nonetheless offers up plenty of fast-paced racing under the sun’s glare: Desert Valley Raceway.

Alpine showed off the latest iteration of their planned return to road car production yesterday in Monaco. Starting with the A110-50 concept of 2012, followed by a certain Vision Gran Turismo creation last year, and the Alpine Celebration model later in 2015, we’ve now landed at the rather confusingly-titled Alpine Vision.

Forza, along with other first-tier exclusives like Halo and Gears of War in the Microsoft camp, is considered a “system-seller”. Sony has Uncharted, Ratchet & Clank, and of course, Gran Turismo. These games help move hardware: it’s no coincidence that the highest-selling title in Gran Turismo history (GT3) was bundled with the best-selling home console.

Remember Nimble Beat Circuit? That Week 16 selection kicked off a renewed interest in smaller tracks here in the office, and the cars that feel at home on them. There’s something immensely satisfying about the speed-conservation approach little cars offer, knowing that any velocity scrubbed away will be all the more difficult to recover from. Smörgåsbord is just that sort of circuit, and its my selection for this week’s Track of the Week.

Another month, another pack of cars to look forward to in Project CARS. After last month’s StanceWorks Track Expansion introduced a new environment and an insane drift car to tame, Slightly Mad is continuing their pattern of following up with a straight-forward cars-only DLC. Judging by recent teasers, this will be quite the popular pack.

With rumours swirling earlier this month, Wolfgang Reip has now confirmed the bad news (care of Daily Sports Car): Nissan has chosen not to renew his contract for the 2016 season.

Nineteen hundred seventy four. That’s a sizeable number, one with significance. You see, that is the total number of car models found in the following games: Gran Turismo 6, Forza Horizon 2, Driveclub, Project CARS, Forza Motorsport 6, Need For Speed, and Assetto Corsa. At least, that’s according to our handy, sortable Google Spreadsheet.

Rumble strips. They come in a variety of shapes and shades – most common is red and white, like a barber pole, or a candy cane – and tend to act as targets for racers committed to shaving every last hundredth off their lap times. For this, the seventeenth TOTW here at GTPlanet, we’ve picked a track without any.

A fight to the finish was what fans wanted last weekend, and receive one they certainly did. As the season opener, the Daytona 24 served as an excellent sign of things to come, a day-long sprint with record-setting wins in the Prototype and GTLM categories.