The formbook largely went out the window in the final preliminary round of the 2025 Gran Turismo World Series, as veteran racer Angel Inostroza for Team Porsche and Pol Urra scored first wins since 2023.
Los Angeles hosted the third of the three events leading up to this year’s final in Fukuoka next month. Each of the three awards up to six World Series points, with points carrying through to the World Final — where far more are available — to give a boost that could end up deciding the two titles.
That meant that there was everything to play for and maximum pressure in front of the live audience in the ornate Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, affecting some more than others.
Gran Turismo World Series Los Angeles: Manufacturers Cup
One for whom the pressure wasn’t showing was debut driver, and sole non-Americas representative Noah Lanuza, who scorched to pole position by over a quarter of a second in the Mercedes-AMG. Series regular Donovan Parker lined up second at Road Atlanta in the soon-to-be-replaced Ferrari, fractionally ahead of Inostroza’s Porsche and Adriano Carrazza in the Toyota.
This season’s form team Subaru could only manage tenth, with two-time world champion Daniel Solis downbeat about his chances beforehand. As this was ahead of only Simon Rosenberger’s Lamborghini which picked up a penalty and the Nissan of Celso Filho after technical issues with his rig, his accuracy was commendable.
Unusually, and we’re not even sure we’ve ever seen this before, all 12 of the cars on the grid opted for the exact same starting tire: Racing Medium. That immediately raised questions about strategy, and pushed the focus onto on-track overtakes without any tire differential.
Parker quickly obliged, taking the lead into the chicane after two laps, while Carrazza was also on the move as he made the same pass on Inostroza to get up into the podium spots. Further back, Rosenberger appeared to be caught out by the slipstream from Trent Jeffrey’s Honda and missed his braking point by a mile to clip Randall Haywood’s BMW.
As the championship’s second-placed car recovered — with Rosenberger letting Haywood return ahead of him — this split the pack between the front seven and back five. Or rather four of the back five, as Solis subsequently took a spin on the exit of turn five.
Soon enough drivers began to blink and head into the pits, with Parker the first to dive in from the lead with some very second-hand rear tires compared to his rivals. At the same time, Carrazza jumped Lanuza into the chicane to move up to second and then inheriting the lead from Parker.
Then came what was probably the race-defining incident. The three leaders headed down into the chicane three abreast and it was almost inevitable that one would lose out in a major way. That turned out to be Lanuza, as the Supra squeezed the Porsche into the Mercedes, which was subsequently spat out into the gravel.
Surprisingly this was deemed a racing incident, though on replays it looked as if the Porsche and Toyota had mild contact a few car lengths earlier, resulting in the sudden dart to the right from Carrazza as he tried to gather the car up. Either way, it was little comfort for Lanuza who was a passenger on his trip down to sixth.
In the chaos, Inostroza was able to keep momentum up and slip past Carrazza into the lead into turn one, as the leaders surprisingly stayed out lap after lap on the Medium rubber. Cardinal, now third in the Mazda, was the first to swap for Softs at the end of lap 18, and this brought him out eight seconds down on the early-stopping Parker.
Parker though was running old Softs now, having chewed through his Medium tires early on and was now committed to a two-stop while most of those behind were gaining on fresh rubber and only pitting once.
Sure enough, Parker was back in for more tires only a lap later on, putting the Inostroza/Carrazza/Cardinal pack back up onto the podium and with a healthy gap to Arthur Mosso Nunes in the McLaren back in fourth.
That set up a chase to the flag, with Carrazza seemingly biding his time until late on to preserve tires and avoid a counter-attack down the long straight. However a mistake two laps from home left him needing to chase down Inostroza all over again — and fend off Cardinal in the Mazda too.
It proved just a step too far though, with Inostroza crossing the line to claim his — and Porsche’s — first live event win since 2023, with Carrazza in second and Cardinal a comfortable third. Mosso and Lanuza placed fourth and fifth for McLaren and Mercedes to add to the teams’ points tallies, while Walsen scored the first point of the season for defending champion Lexus in sixth.
Manufacturers Cup Grand Final Results
- 1 – Team Porsche (Angel Inostroza) – Porsche 911 RSR – 30 laps
- 2 – Team Toyota (Adriano Carrazza) – Toyota GR Supra Racing Concept – +0.162s
- 3 – Team Mazda (Samuel Cardinal) – Mazda RX-Vision GT3 – +3.076s
Manufacturers Cup Standings (After Three Rounds)
- 1 – Team Subaru (Drumont, Miyazono, Solis) – 12 points
- 2 – Team BMW (Haywood, Labouteley, Suzuki) – 10 points
- 2 – Team Mazda (Cardinal, Kokubun, Urra) – 10 points
- 4 – Team Porsche (Inostroza, Sato, Serrano) – 9 points
- 5 – Team Toyota (Carrazza, de Bruin, Morimoto) – 8 points
- 6 – Team Nissan (Filho, Okumoto, Sedziak) – 6 points
- 7 – Team McLaren (Kamada/Yamamoto, Mosso, Murphy) – 4 points
- 8 – Team AMG (Bonelli, Lanuza, Sasaki) – 3 points
- 9 – Team Lexus (Kawakami, Mangano, Walsen) – 1 point
Gran Turismo World Series Los Angeles: Nations Cup
As usual, the Nations Cup is a three-stage event comprising a qualifying lap with the grand final combination, a sprint qualifying race with the grid based on that and using a different combination, to set the grid for the grand final.
Quickest out of the blocks in qualifying was Kaj de Bruin, who broke his podium duck at Berlin last time out and set the pace in the X2019s at Daytona Road Course. Championship leader Jose Serrano, winning two grand final races from two so far this season, could only place third as Kylian Drumont split the pair, but that was still ahead of his nearest competitors. Berlin runner-up Valerio Gallo placed fifth, with London’s second-place man Pol Urra in seventh.
With the grid set it was time to head to the sprint in the Chaparral 2J at Watkins Glen, and things rapidly turned to Serrano’s favor as Gallo was soon in strife. Taking too much curb through the middle of the chicane unsettled the ground effect car, and the 2021 champion was in the wall facing the wrong way.
Incredibly, de Bruin was shuffled down to fourth in the same complex as Drumont, Serrano, and Inostroza all streaked past him. This became the theme for the race, with Urra also squeezing past in short order — picking up a second’s penalty for a collision — just as drivers started to come in for their mandatory pit stop.
That generated an unexpected strategy split as only two drivers opted not to take on a fresh set of soft tires: Cardinal and Inostroza. With the Chilean at the sharp end, the saved time in the pit lane gave him a four-second lead over the pack but with the most-worn tires of all.
The question of how long he could maintain that gap was quickly answered when Serrano blew past just three laps later, and again in ideal circumstances for the Spaniard as Inostroza became a cork in a top-seven bottle. That hold-up lasted long enough for Serrano to break the slipstream to Drumont in second, giving him a clear run to the flag, with defending champion Takuma Miyazono stealing past de Bruin for third.
Back-to-back winner Serrano would thus start from pole in the final race over 30 laps of Daytona’s Road Course, and with the entire top eight running medium tires for the stint it was its usual evolving tactical battle early on, majoring in caution and more fuel-saving than battles for the lead.
That’s not to say there was an absence of action; Drumont and Serrano were swapping the lead between them, while a collision between Miyazono and de Bruin exiting turn one saw the Dutch racer drop down the field and a one-second penalty for Miyazono — though this proved not terribly consequential for the Japanese driver.
With the lead five cars running as a pack through the first third of the race, they all dived into the pits on lap 13 together — actually quite literally, as Serrano, Drumont, and Labouteley went three-wide into the lane. The two French drivers actually emerged glued together, with the pit lane ghosting inserting the cars inside each other until a few corners in!
Everyone had now stopped, and all had flipped their tire choices: all the medium-starters switched to hard, and the three on hards originally were now on medium. Leading that latter pack was Guy Barbara, on a charge towards the points-paying positions and dragging Gallo with him.
Gallo was the one to make the tire differential count the most though, sneaking up on the front pack as they tussled for position and getting past both Drumont and Serrano and into the lead quartet. Neither were quite done though, as further squabbling resulted in what was essentially a front pack of eight covered by a postage stamp when all of them took to the pits for a final time for new softs.
That set the stage for the showdown, with all cars now on the same soft tire and too many drivers in too little space making a big incident just about inevitable.
It was a long time coming though, with more minor incidents instead setting the scene. A combative move from Miyazono into the International Horseshoe saw him muscle past Labouteley, Gallo, and Serrano all at once to take up second place, and that gave Urra way too much space at the front — with the Spaniard now beyond slipstream and beginning to lay lap records down.
Everyone now seemed to be biding their time for a slipstream attack on the final lap, as Miyazono and Labouteley began to rein Urra back in again. Instead though we got the incident, again in the International Horseshoe and again between Miyazono and Labouteley.
Heading to the inside, the French driver looked to miss his braking point by just enough to spear him into Miyazono, half-spinning the Japanese racer. Serrano, probably unable to believe his luck, sneaked through to jump to second, with Drumont joining him in third. Labouteley waited to let Miyazono back in front of him — into fifth and fourth respectively — but still earned a near-instant three-second penalty.
Urra then coasted to his first victory since the Team Spain championship-winning season in 2023, with Serrano’s second-place enough to minimize the damage to his championship lead — now at five points from Urra. Drumont rounded out the podium, from Miyazono, Gallo, and Barbara, who claimed his first point of the season.
Nations Cup Grand Final Results
- 1 – Pol Urra (Spain) – Red Bull X2019 Competition – 30 laps
- 2 – Jose Serrano (Spain) – Red Bull X2019 Competition – +0.757s
- 3 – Kylian Drumont (France) – Red Bull X2019 Competition – +1.711s
Nations Cup Standings (After Three Rounds)
- 1 – Jose Serrano (Spain) – 17 points
- 2 – Pol Urra (Spain) – 12 points
- 3 – Valerio Gallo (Italy) – 11 points
- 4 – Takuma Miyazono (Japan) – 7 points
- 5 – Kylian Drumont (France) – 6 points
- 6 – Takuma Sasaki (Japan) – 5 points
- 7 – Kaj de Bruin (Netherlands) – 4 points
- 8 – Guy Barbara (Australia) – 1 point
All that remains now is the business of the World Final in Fukuoka on December 20-21. This will see the Manufacturers Cup drivers unite as a three-person squad for four races — one each as individuals, and a team race — while the Nations Cup racers will resume battle over what we assume will be the usual three-race event.
Although there are many more World Series points available at the World Final, the competitors’ scores will carry across the whole season and performances to date could again impact the destination of the title. There’s still all to race for then, and hopefully we’ll see you there!
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