The GT community has been eagerly awaiting news of the next significant update following last month’s announcement hinting at new content and features for us this fall. According to a very rare English-language tweet from Kazunori Yamauchi this morning, that new content and features will be a “Spec 2.0” update to the game in October and downloadable content shortly after:

Following up from the announcement last week, the leader boards for the Mercedes Live Race Seasonal Event have now been reset, and a few minor changes have been made to the Top Gear Test Track via the latest Gran Turismo 5 update.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qaTfP1RWSM

Each year at SEMA in Las Vegas, Sony hosts the “Gran Turismo Awards” – a competition with one very important judge (Kazunori Yamauchi), who selects a car on display at the show for inclusion in a GT game.

Since the Red Bull X2010’s existence was announced nearly one year ago, there’s been surprisingly little promotion of the vehicle in the form of real-world merchandise. A scale-modeler in the UK has decided to change that by taking matters into his own hands, building a 1/43 diorama of the car and putting it up for sale on eBay. Needless to say, it would be the perfect addition to any Gran Turismo collection.

If you’ve taken a look at the Mercedes’ Live Race Seasonal Event, you’ve probably noticed that many players atop the leaderboards scored their times by exploiting “shortcuts” around the track.

The latest GT5 Seasonal Event has just gone live, featuring one of the world’s favorite cars: the Mini! Races take place at the following locations, with no tire restrictions and are open to Minis with a maximum of 450PP:

UPDATE: Episode 1 is now available online! Thanks to Taboaamassa for the tip.

The GT Academy 2011 driver development programme shifted up a gear last weekend when European winner Jann Mardenborough had his first competitive outing in a 420bhp Nissan 370Z GT4 race car. Racing in the Welsh Sports and GT Championship at Pembrey, Wales, the gamer-turned-racing driver recorded two strong third place finishes and a fourth in the weekend’s three races.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_le496-npM8

A batch of new Time and Drift Trials have gone live in Gran Turismo 5, along with a revised Online Car Dealership that highlights Mercedes-Benz.

When it was first announced that GT Academy would be coming to the United States, it was also mentioned that the competition would air as a reality show on SPEED TV in the fall of 2011, with host Kristen Adams. Now, we finally have air dates for the program according to SPEED TV’s website:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVgBFBNyxS0

In a surprise move, Polyphony Digital has released a new GT5 update less than one week after 1.11 brought a batch of bug fixes and a Jeff Gordon driving suit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibkOX0w7SoY