The focus shifts back to racing cars in the latest Gran Turismo 7 Online Time Trial, with a vehicle from the unique Vision Gran Turismo collaboration required for a high-speed lap of a famous circuit.
For those not aware of Vision Gran Turismo, it’s a project that’s inspired by the car manufacturer practice of creating concept cars but conducted almost entirely in the virtual realm. Rather than sculpting something a bit off-the-wall out of clay and carting it around motor shows around the world, brands create them for the digital environment.
Despite the virtual angle, car brands (and sometimes not-car brands) take the whole thing very seriously and the output often comes from senior designers like Marek Reichman at Aston Martin, Ralph Gilles at Dodge, Julian Thompson at Jaguar, and Ikuo Maeda at Mazda.
The result is a stable of more than 40 unique vehicles created specifically for, and only drivable in, Gran Turismo by brands wishing to preview their future design direction and technologies to millions of players.
Hyundai’s N 2025 Vision arrived more or less in the middle of the current line-up, and was how designer Albert Biermann (formerly of BMW’s M division) envisioned a racing car that used Hyundai’s “world first” mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell. Built around a U-shaped hydrogen fuel tank, the N 2025 delivers over 870hp to all four wheels through in-wheel motors from a mixture of the 500kW fuel cell and a supercapacitor system powered by braking energy harvesting.
Allied to some pretty high-energy aerodynamics and — for this time trial — Racing Soft tires, the N 2025 is capable of delivering some F1 car-beating lap times, which you’ll need to emulate at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps this week.
Currently the record for doing that is a 1:52.792, which sets the gold target at 1:56.175. Spa is a long and complicated lap though, so there’s likely to be some time left on the table right now and we expect movement before the two weeks are up. Right now we’d estimate a mid-1:55 will be necessary to score gold, but we’ll reassess next week.
The second time trial which began last week, and features the licence-loopholing brand Ruf, remains active for the next seven days too, and while there has been some movement on the record it’s not quite as much as we’d expected last week.
At present the top time in the RGT 4.2 around Fuji International Speedway is a 1:41.195, and that’s quite a bit — relatively speaking — ahead of the second-place time as things stand. That could indicate that there’s little left, so if you’ve already got a time beating the 1:44.230 gold marker you’re probably in for a 2m credit reward. We’d still say it’s worth aiming to get another tenth or so if you’re close to the boundary though.
In order to access the Online Time Trials, you’ll need to unlock Sport Mode, by completing Menu Book 9 (“Championship: Tokyo Highway Parade”) in the GT Cafe single player hub. As it’s just you against the clock and not a direct, head-to-head multiplayer event, PlayStation Plus is not required.
You’ll usually need to be within 3% of the fastest time globally once the event finishes in order to secure “gold” status and a 2m credit bonus prize. There’s smaller prizes of one million for being within 5%, and 250,000cr for bronze at 10% off.
The events update every Thursday, with each individual challenge usually remaining available for two weeks and the oldest of the two events being replaced each week. You can look forward to the next new Time Trial arriving at 0700 UTC on Thursday July 24.
Gran Turismo 7 Lap Time Challenge July 17 – Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
- Track: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
- Car: Hyundai N 2025 VGT – Garage/Rental Car
- Power/Weight/PP Limit: BOP (H)
- Tires: Racing Soft
- Settings: Fixed
Gran Turismo 7 Lap Time Challenge July 10 – Fuji
- Track: Fuji International Speedway
- Car: Ruf RGT 4.2 ’16 – Garage/Rental Car
- Power/Weight/PP Limit: BOP (M)
- Tires: Sports Soft
- Settings: Fixed
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