Polyphony Digital has announced two periods of online maintenance for the GT6 online services this week, which will be unavailable for approximately two hours starting at the following times:

Each year at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance – the world’s most famous and prestigious car show – Kazunori Yamauchi selects a car to be awarded the “Gran Turismo Trophy”, after which it will be digitized and immortalized in the Gran Turismo series.

A new batch of A-Spec races are now available in Gran Turismo 6, featuring a series of new drift and time trial challenges exclusive to any non-racing car of your choice, tuner cars, GT500-class Super GT machines, and the Toyota 86/Subaru BRZ/Scion FR-S.

The Toyota FT-1 Vision Gran Turismo concept car was fully revealed today at McCall’s Motorwork Revival at Monterey Airport. Designed by Toyota’s North American Calty Design Research facility, the FT-1 Vision GT is an evolution of the original FT-1 concept originally designed for Gran Turismo 6 before going on to receive an incredible response at the North American International Auto Show this past January.

It would appear that Toyota’s FT-1 Vision Gran Turismo variant isn’t the only thing coming to GT6 next month as a full scale model of the FT-1 concept was unveiled today at the McCall’s Motorworks Revival hosted in California.

With the conclusion of the 2014 European GT Academy Race Camp, a new group of competitors arrived at Silverstone from nearly every corner of the globe for the international region of the competition, which includes Australia, India, Mexico, Middle East and Thailand.

Italian website Quattroruote recently participated in an interview session with Kazunori Yamauchi, and – as is often the case when journalists get to spend time with him these days – they were eager to ask about the future with Gran Turismo 7.

After the overwhelming positive response when revealed to the world at the North American Intertnational Auto Show earlier this year, Toyota is once again showing off its FT-1 concept vehicle, this time in racing trim as reported earlier.

A new batch of A-Spec races are now available, ranging from a beginner’s challenge to that of an expert while overtaking as many opponents as possible within the allotted time.

This guest contribution is by Nick McMillen, 2013 United States GT Academy Champion. This is the account of his journey as one of the newest Nismo Athletes. Stay tuned for future articles from our racing driver contributor coming soon as he experiences and progresses through his professional career.

A new update for Gran Turismo 6 has gone live, and with it comes improvements to mutli-monitor and open lobby. Here’s a closer look at the issues addressed in the newest update, weighing in at a meager 30MB.

GT Academy’s European Race Camp has nearly reached its halfway point, with 41 finalists from France, Italy, the UK, Russia, Spain, Portugal, Benelux, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Sweden all competing to become professional racing drivers for Nissan.

WRS Time Trials

A new batch of A-Spec races are now available in Gran Turismo 6, featuring a series of new drift and time trial challenges exclusive to four-wheel drive non-racing cars, non-racing Ferrari’s, any non-racing car of your choice, and the 1985 Lotus 97T.

Polyphony Digital has just released the “Beyond the Apex” mobile app in the iTunes App Store; click here to download it for free (332MB).

If you’re a photomode fanatic you’ll certainly appreciate the special event taking place over the next few weeks involving the Bavarian bravado of BMW, all in the name of a chance to have your photo showcased to millions of people around the world.

Jann Mardenborough had another successful weekend in the GP3 Series, taking a podium finish at the Hungarian round of the championship.  The young Brit had to work hard in Saturday’s race – he qualified in 13th place after a red flag stopped his fastest run – but he got stuck in and took a very creditable seventh.  This put him on the front row of the grid for race two on Sunday.“I didn’t get as good a start as yesterday and Patrick (Niederhauser) got the jump on me,” explained Jann. “I settled in to third place and managed to hold onto it for the full race, despite the pace not being as good as yesterday.“It’s great to get a podium, and of course last week’s win, which takes me into the summer break with lots of new points.  This also builds my confidence for the next round at Spa so I can’t wait for that to come around now.”

Nissan and GT Academy head back to the fabled Spa-Francorchamps Circuit for their third run at the Blancpain Endurance Series flagship race. The team and drivers’ have experience on their side and are more determined than ever to take the top step on the podium in 2014.