The standout stars of the first round of the 2025 Gran Turismo World Series continued their form into the second, as Team Subaru and Jose Serrano each grabbed maximum points to maintain their 100% starts.
As we saw with the 2024 season, 2025 will feature three preliminary live events in which the qualified finalists — 12 brands in Manufacturers and 12 drivers in Nations Cup — from the online stage earlier this year will race off for World Series points. The points carry through to the World Final, this year in Fukuoka, giving a potentially title-deciding boost before the racers battle for the bigger points available there.
Berlin was the second of the three, following the London event in June, and with a live audience in the Uber Eats Music Hall the pressure to perform was high — and the drivers certainly seemed to feel it in three high-stakes races.
Gran Turismo World Series Berlin: Manufacturers Cup
Qualifying saw Subaru’s Kylian Drumont continue his team’s strong form, securing pole position as the only driver to break into the 8:03s at the Nurburgring 24hr course. He was joined on the front row by Thomas Labouteley for BMW, with Jose Serrano’s Porsche and debutant Mikolaj Sedziak’s Nissan rounding out the top four.
At the start of the six-lap race, the leaders employed a split strategy with the regulations requiring use of all three racing compounds. Drumont and Labouteley opted for the softest tires, intending to build an early gap in a classic GT live race strategy, and while most of the rest of the front-runners chose to start on mediums Sedziak made a bold call to start on the hards.
That unfolded largely as expected, with the front-runners pulling away to establish a three-second gap while the Nissan dropped down to seventh pretty quickly in the early exchanges. With heavy cars taking more out of the tires, the top two elected to pit at the end of the opening lap to switch to the medium grade, promoting Serrano to the race lead.
This tire battle set the stage for the middle of the race, and while most of the cars that started on the mediums opted for a lap-two stop, Valerio Gallo (Honda) and Naif Alfaleh (Lamborghini) chose to extend their stints for a third lap — with the mid-engined cars seeing better tire life.
Naturally with so many cars now running in different stages of their own race plan, this brought traffic into play. Labouteley, having closed in on Drumont as both ran hard tires for the final half of the race, was held up by Jay Murphy’s McLaren on a different strategy, costing him over a second with overtaking difficult on the Nordschleife section, allowing the leading Subaru to escape. However, the gap closed again after Drumont had a scrappy encounter with Alfaleh’s Lamborghini, which saw both cars contact with the barriers.
This set the stage for a tense final lap. Drumont and Labouteley were committed to finishing on aging hard tires, while behind them a fierce battle was brewing. Pol Urra (Mazda) and Serrano were running a second lap on soft tires — a pretty risky strategy given the high wear rates — and while markedly quicker through the first half of the lap soon saw their charge begin to fade.
The driver to watch now was Nissan’s Sedziak. The Polish racer had been saving fuel and tires for only the final lap, and while also on a second lap on the softs was now by far the fastest car on track in the closing stages.
At the very front, Drumont had managed to hold off Labouteley to escape the slipstream down the Dottinger Hohe — the Subaru’s weak spot — to secure a second consecutive victory in a French 1-2 as BMW picked up its second consecutive second-place. Behind though, the fight for the final podium spot came down to the wire.
Sedziak used his fresher tires to pull alongside Urra and Serrano down the final straight, and with the three cars going door-to-door-to-door, managed to beat both through the final complex to snatch third place at the checkered flag, securing a podium for Nissan on his debut.
The victory gives Subaru maximum points after two rounds, with BMW close behind in second. Sedziak’s incredible drive — winning driver of the day — earned Nissan valuable points, placing the brand in a tie for third in the standings with Mazda.
Manufacturers Cup Grand Final Results
- 1 – Team Subaru (Kylian Drumont) – Subaru BRZ GT300 – 6 laps
- 2 – Team BMW (Thomas Labouteley) – BMW M6 GT3 – +0.823s
- 3 – Team Mazda (Mikolaj Sedziak) – Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 – +4.899s
Manufacturers Cup Standings (After Two Rounds)
- 1 – Team Subaru (Drumont, Miyazono, Solis) – 12 points
- 2 – Team BMW (Haywood, Labouteley, Suzuki) – 10 points
- 3 – Team Mazda (Cardinal, Kokubun, Urra) – 6 points
- 3 – Team Nissan (Filho, Okumoto, Sedziak) – 6 points
- 5 – Team Toyota (Carrazza, de Bruin, Morimoto) – 3 points
- 5 – Team Porsche (Inostroza, Sato, Serrano) – 3 points
- 7 – Team McLaren (Kamada/Yamamoto, Mosso, Murphy) – 1 point
- 7 – Team AMG (Bonelli, Lanuza, Sasaki) – 1 point
Gran Turismo World Series Berlin: Nations Cup
In qualifying for the sprint race, it was Japan’s Takuma Sasaki who set the pace in the Red Bull X2019 at the Red Bull Ring, narrowly beating out Labouteley (on double-duty this weekend) for pole position. The session wasn’t without drama, as Australia’s Guy Barbara spun on his flying lap having set a purple first sector, leaving him at the back of the grid.
The sprint race is usually a case of organised chaos: clean, but with rapidly changing pack order. With the event consisting of classic Porsche 962C Group C cars at a no-chicane layout of Monza, a slipstream battle was guaranteed.
Taking an early starring role was Dutchman Kaj de Bruin, who carved his way from seventh on the grid into the lead. However, his aggression cost him dearly when he made contact with Labouteley, earning a one-second penalty that dropped him to fourth and seemingly out of contention.
He’d come back into the mix later on, but ultimately it was the co-operation between Frenchmen Drumont and Labouteley that secured a second dominant 1-2 finish of the weekend and locked out the front row of the grid for the all-important Grand Final.
The 30-lap Grand Final at the Red Bull Ring was thrown into chaos before it even began, as rain fell, forcing the entire field to start on intermediate tires. From pole, Drumont led the field away, but the first major incident occurred at Turn 3 when de Bruin made contact with Sasaki, dropping the Japanese driver down the order.
As a dry line began to appear, the race’s first major strategic decision point arrived. Labouteley was the first to gamble, pitting from third place on lap five for soft slick tires. With everyone questioning his choice it proved a masterstroke as he gained time over the whole field immediately. Those who followed a lap or two later, like London-winner Serrano, also made strides over those who stayed out longer and after the first round of stops, Labouteley had cycled into the lead with Serrano in second.
However, the weather had another twist in store. Just as the field settled in to the dry line, the rain returned. Many of the leaders, including Labouteley, pitted very early for a new set of intermediates on lap 15, but this time the advantage swung the other way.
Crucially, Serrano, his countryman Urra, and Gallo all opted to stay out for two more laps on the softs, only diving in for Intermediates when the rain intensified. This kept their tires fresher for the closing stages, while the early stoppers had all seen their tires overheat and wear excessively on a track that wasn’t yet wet enough.
In the final third of the race, the difference in tire condition became stark. Serrano, Urra, and Gallo, on their healthier intermediates, sliced through the field with ease. Serrano charged into the lead on lap 25, dispatching a struggling de Bruin whose rear tires were completely spent. With Urra and Gallo following him through, a repeat of the London podium looked certain.
But in a surprising late twist, Urra dived into the pits from what was a comfortable second place with only three laps remaining. The move baffled everyone on the floor, and turned out to be a bad choice — with Urra later quoting Charles Leclerc to quip “I am stupid”. With the unnecessary stop he threw away a certain podium, promoting Gallo to second and opening the door for de Bruin to nurse his worn tires to the line to claim an emotional third place — surprisingly his first-ever podium in the Gran Turismo World Series.
Serrano was left then to cruise to his second consecutive victory, stamping his authority on the championship with maximum points as his nearest rival dropped away.
Nations Cup Grand Final Results
- 1 – Jose Serrano (Spain) – Red Bull X2019 Competition – 30 laps
- 2 – Valerio Gallo (Italy) – Red Bull X2019 Competition – +6.945s
- 3 – Kaj de Bruin (Netherlands) – Red Bull X2019 Competition – +7.644s
Nations Cup Standings (After Two Rounds)
- 1 – Jose Serrano (Spain) – 12 points
- 2 – Valerio Gallo (Italy) – 9 points
- 3 – Pol Urra (Spain) – 6 points
- 4 – Takuma Sasaki (Japan) – 5 points
- 5 – Kaj de Bruin (Netherlands) – 4 points
- 6 – Takuma Miyazono (Japan) – 4 points
- 7 – Kylian Drumont (France) – 2 points
The action will now move to Los Angeles in November for one final chance to grab crucial points before the live final in Fukuoka at year-end.
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