The format for the 2024 Gran Turismo World Series has been officially announced, with four live events set to take place across the year and a return to the solo Nations Cup event.
Qualification for the live events will, as usual, go to the top-ranked players from the online season which looks surprisingly compact this year. Each of the two championships — Manufacturers Cup and Nations Cup — will be contested over six online rounds of competition, stuffed into just over a month of racing.
We’ll once again see racing every Wednesday and Saturday throughout the window, which runs from April 17 to May 25 and has the two events running consecutively. While the exact combinations for the two series haven’t yet been announced, the official calendars for both are as follows:
GT World Series 2024 Nations Cup Online Rounds:
- Round 1 – Wednesday 17 April – Gr.2 – 24h du Mans Circuit
- Round 2 – Saturday 20 April – Honda RA272 ’65 – Watkins Glen Long
- Round 3 – Wednesday 24 April – Specified Cars – Trial Mountain
- Round 4 – Saturday 27 April – Porsche 917LL – Autodrome Lago Maggiore GP Reverse
- Round 5 – Wednesday 1 May – Gr.1 – Daytona Road Course
- Round 6 – Saturday 4 May – Red Bull X2019 – Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
GT World Series 2024 Manufacturers Cup Online Rounds:
- Round 1 – Wednesday 8 May – Gr.3 – Nurburgring 24h
- Round 2 – Saturday 11 May – Gr.3* – Interlagos
- Round 3 – Wednesday 15 May – Gr.3 – Deep Forest
- Round 4 – Saturday 18 May – Gr.3* – Suzuka Circuit
- Round 5 – Wednesday 22 May – Gr.3 – Daytona Road Course
- Round 6 – Saturday 25 May – Gr.3* – Fuji International Speedway
It’s likely that each championship will include dropped scores — where players’ lowest-scoring rounds are not included in their totals — though how many is also not yet announced. However the top scorers online will earn invitations to the three live events.
This year that will include just 12 drivers for Nations Cup, as the competition reverts to a solo event after the experimental, expanded team format of 2023 — making Spain the only team champion. Once again we’ll see this divided by region, with five drivers from the Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA) area, two apiece from Asia, North America, and Central/South American, and one lone participant from Oceania.
Manufacturers Cup will be slightly more complex, as we’ll see one driver from each of the top 12 brands (or top nine plus series partners Genesis, Mazda, and Toyota) — as selected through a global ranking of the marques — in each of three regions taking part. That will again see EMEA remain as it is, while the two Americas regions unite, as do Asia-Oceania. However each driver will only race in the one live event in their region, before the three join forces for the World Final.
GT World Series 2024 Live Events
- World Series Round 1 – July 6 – Montreal
- World Series Round 2 – August 10 – Prague
- World Series Round 3 – September 28 – Tokyo
- World Finals – [TBA] – [TBA]
Each of the three Manufacturers regions therefore will hold its own final — with the Nations Cup drivers attending all three — and two of the three events are in countries never before visited by the GT World Series.
July will see the 12 Manufacturers Cup representatives from the Americas head to Montreal, Canada. In August it’s the turn of the top 12 European Manufacturers drivers, with a live event in Prague, Czechia. Finally the series heads back to Tokyo, Japan, for the Asia-Oceania round with the top 12 Manufacturers Cup drivers.
Each event awards World Series points to the top six drivers in each of the two competitions, with six going to the winner. Those points will then carry through to the yet-to-be-announced World Finals event — although some regional versions of the official site clearly state that Abu Dhabi will be hosting.
That will see the Nations drivers continue their season-long battle, while the Manufacturers Cup will unite the three drivers for each marque from each region for their team event.
If you’re new to the Gran Turismo World Series, it’s a slightly different format from the Daily Races in the game, featuring longer events with players grouped according to their Driver Rating and points that scale to the relative DR strength of each race.
When you enter the series you’re assigned a “League”, with only the top-ranked, GT1 League players — holding A+ and A Driver Ratings — eligible for selection for the World Series live events. Players with a DR B rating are placed into GT2 League, with drivers at DR C and in GT3 League. Your League does not change during the season, whether you increase or drop in DR rating.
Points for each race are calculated from the average Driver Rating score of the players in that race — so GT1 lobbies will be worth a lot more for each position than GT3 ones — with the most points going to the race winner.
While GT2 and GT3 drivers won’t get the chance to participate in the live events, each series also awards fairly substantial in-game prize money according to your rank in each area, region, and country or manufacturer, so it’s well worth driving in at least the minimum number of counted races.
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