Maybe just new events this time around. But there is hope for the near future...I just read this on the "News" section, posted there April 3.
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Vehicular Damage Coming to GT5 Prologue
April 3rd, 2008
Gran Turismo series creator Kazunori Yamauchi has announced during an interview with CVG that a major update is in the works for GT5: Prologue, and is going to include the highly anticipated vehicular damage! Other updates will include enhanced online functionality and community building features. We have known for some time now that private races and in-game chat have been in the works, with a realistic release date sometime this summer. However, damage may be a bit further off in the fuall of this, as cited by IGN. Stay tuned for the full interview, released tomorrow, where Yamauchi is expected to comment on the possibility of developing a complete Formula 1 title in the future.
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I hope and pray that "vehicular damage" comes to online races. I think that will put a damper on the punters and bullies, also sloppy driving. I'm assuming that any damage will remain and slow the car down for the remainder of the race. Similar to Need For Speed

ro Street. (see my signature line).
"community building features" can only mean that there will be a way to have scheduled private races. Or maybe take a page from the Need For Speed

ro Speed playbook and be able to have a custom race designed by an individual, and open to invitation only. The "invitation only" races worked out very well in NFS

S. Just send invitations to your PS3 "friends" list. You could specify the track, the number of laps, PP level, penalties, cars allowed, ...etc. Would THAT be cool.
NFS

S also has the ability for headsets to be used, so anything said by a player using a headset can be heard by everyone in the race. Actually, there wasn't much chatter. Mostly comments between racers who knew each other. But I expect in GT5

that headsets will be used to comment about intentional bad driving...and appologies for sloppy driving. There is the occasional jerk using bad language, but very seldom.