With Friday evening’s Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup well and truly setting the stage for this year’s Gran Turismo World Series Finals, it’s time to get into the main event — starting with the Manufacturers Cup at 1800UTC today.

This team-based event — one of two this year — sees the best players from each of the three Gran Turismo regions (Americas, Asia-Oceania, and Europe/Middle East/Africa) turn out to select their chosen manufacturer. In total there’s 12 brands represented, consisting of the best nine from the online events plus the series partners of Genesis, Mazda, and Toyota.

The top-ranked player overall on each team will be tasked with setting a qualifying lap at the fearsome Nurburgring 24hr circuit in the brand’s Gr.3 car, before a solo, eight-lap Qualifying Race at the local Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

That then sets the grid for the final, which heads back to the Green Hell for a five-lap race with a twist: each driver on each team must drive at least once, and while there’s no need to use different dry tire grades, weather will play a part.

There’s some pretty stacked teams in the field too, and plenty of home favorites. We’re likely to see some cheering for Team Mazda, with Spain’s new Toyota GR GT Cup champion Pol Urra driving alongside Robbie Heck and Hiroshi Okumoto. Team Toyota, sporting defending Nations champion Coque Lopez, Adriano Carrazza, and Rikuto Kobayashi wil also be one to watch.

Another squad likely to get solid local support and — after winning the Showdown in Amsterdam — good candidate for the overall win will be Team Porsche. Jose Serrano will be gunning for a first world title and he’s joined by the returning Angel Inostroza who missed the last event through injury. However the team is down to two again as Takuma Sasaki is not able to take part.

We also wouldn’t count out defending champion outfit Subaru, with the returning Triple Crown winner Takuma Miyazono and 2022 winner Kylian Drumont, with new-to-team Roberto Sternberg. Lamborghini too put in a stellar performance at the Showdown with Randall Haywood, Yuki Kodaka, and Will Murdoch racing once again.

Top qualifying team McLaren is also worth a gamble as Konstantinos Konstantinou, Koki Mizuno, and Donovan Parker aim to deliver a first title to the brand.

Races

Qualifying – Gr.3, Nurburgring 24hr
Qualifying Race – Gr.3, Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya GP (No Chicane)
Grand Final – Gr.3, Nurburgring 24hr

Viewers can also receive in-game rewards with two special tie-ins accessible through the World Map menu in GT7. By predicting the winning manufacturer — which you can do up until the moment the wheels start moving in the main race — you can earn 1,000,000cr for your game wallet.

There’s also an as-yet unknown Vision GT car available as a gift if you click through the Viewers Campaign and watch any part of the stream up to 2359 UTC on Sunday December 10.

The racing begins today, Saturday December 2, at 1800 UTC (convert to your time here) and we wish all of the competitors the best of luck!

Alternative Language Streams

Competitors

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