Sure enough, the SpikeTV/GameTrailers that Sony helped hype up yesterday didn’t show much, but there was indeed some more footage revealed of the beautiful new Rome and Tuscany circuits. Watch it for yourself right here.

The official PlayStation Blog is hyping up a broadcast of Spike TV’s hour-long E3 preview special, which they claim will show off “video debuts of Killzone 3, SOCOM 4, and Gran Turismo 5.” With Sony’s big prime-time press conference now a mere 4 days away, I’m highly suspicious that Polyphony Digital would use such a comparatively low-profile event to show off anything new about the game, but you never know.

An email sent from Sony to some of our French users confirms that Circuit de la Sarthe will be shown off in the Gran Turismo 5 demo running at the company’s track-side PS3 booth. Roughly translated, the last line reads, “Come see an ultra realistic virtual preview of the mythical track of the 24H of Mans!” Some of our friends at GT5rs will be in attendance at the race, so expect some fresh game-play footage this weekend!

We now have solid confirmation that the game will be playable at Le Mans 2010. Thanks to these new pictures from Sirolf, we can see GT5 takes front and center at Sony’s tent – there’s even a little podium between two racing pods, suggesting a competition of some sort. It should also be noted that a logo for the new PlayStation Move controller is visible in the background, but it will most likely be showcased with games that have already been confirmed to use the new technology.

Last week, I mentioned Sony’s support of Team Peugeot Sport in the pending 24 Hours of Le Mans 2010 race, and that news has turned out to be even more promising than it first seemed. Why? It appears Sony is no longer just promoting the “Gran Turismo” brand, but now they’re getting specific with a big, bold Gran Turismo 5 logo on the car and on banners around the circuit. This is a change from just last month at the 24-hour Nurburgring race, where all the cars were sporting generic GT sponsorship.

As you may recall, GT series creator Kazunori Yamauchi joined the Team World Car Awards for the 24-Hour Nurburgring race just a few weeks ago. Despite some mechanical troubles, they finished fourth in their class, with Yamauchi himself setting the team’s second-fastest lap at 9:48. Check out on-board video of one of his laps below, featuring his signature smooth-and-steady driving style. Congratulations to the whole team, and thanks to all who sent this in!

Mimaximax has just shared another video clip from his time in Germany a few weeks ago – this time providing some in-car gameplay footage from a Viper ACR on the latest revision of the complete Nurburgring circuit. While it’s nothing particularly new, you’ll get a good impression of the physics this most recent demo was running.

With the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race coming up the weekend of June 12-13, Sony has re-affirmed their interest in motorsport with title sponsorship of Team Peugeot Sport. Of course, the PlayStation and Gran Turismo brand has been prominently connected with the event for several years now, with highly-visible banner placement around the Mulsane chicanes. This year, though, with the pending release of GT5, they’ve got more reason than ever to support the big race. Here’s the Sony France press release, via GT5rs (thanks to Vidor for the tip!):

GT5 was shown off running in 3D at a special event in Tokyo last week. Gaming site 1up was on hand and provided their decidedly mixed reviews on the experience:

Since we first learned that the company’s new SLS-AMG would grace GT5‘s cover, the company has been increasingly open about their affiliation with the game. First it was the showcased GT5 demo at their headquarter’s museum and dealers across Europe, but now they’re expanding use of the game as they integrate it with their international marketing efforts, as seen in Mercedes’ new Facebook game “Behind the Speed”. This simple game comes with a lucrative prize: a free copy of Gran Turismo 5 and your very own VisionRacer VR3 driving rig.

GTPlanet user Calcifer has been hard at work developing a unique application for the iPhone/iPod Touch and Android platforms: it lets you view the latest top 100 times posted to the GT5 Prologue in-game leader boards! This provides a quick way to check rankings without having to shuffle through Prologue’s menus, or just look at the status of your own hot laps regardless of where you are. The app is available for free on both the iTunes App Store (direct link here) and the Android Marketplace (QR code available here) – or just search the applications for “gran turismo” and you should find it quickly on either platform.

Gaming business news site MCV is claiming to have received word from a “source close to Sony” that Gran Turismo 5’s implementation of 3D technology and support for the new PlayStation Move controller are the reasons for the game’s extended development time. While 3D support has already been confirmed, until now PS Move rumors had been fueled by nothing more than some extremely vague statements by Kazunori Yamauchi early last month to gaming magazine PSM3:

There’s some good news confirmed in a new article from Auto Express – a “secret” demo was apparently at last weekend’s 24-hour race, which showed the Green Hell at night. They were also able to confirm that the race-spec Lexus IS-F which Yamauchi drove in the event will be included in the game:

Here’s the latest batch of videos from GT5’s Nurburgring GP Course, featuring a Corvette ZR-1 and Lexus SC430 Super GT car. While you watch, look for this interesting detail in the game’s menu system: the ZR-1, Audi R8, and CirtoenGT are listed as “Premium” cars. That’s interesting, because as we know from the semi-official GT5 feature list, Premium models will feature the game’s more violent damage system. Because we’ve only seen rally cars get busted up, it was initially assumed that only racing or rally cars would be in this Premium category, but now it looks like that may not be the case…

Our old friend mimaximax travelled to Germany this past weekend to experience the Nurburgring GP demo first hand! Here’s his latest video, providing us with an in-car gameplay video of the Enzo Ferrari around the new Nurburgring GP circuit.

You’ve probably seen Sony’s recent marketing campaigns featuring “vice president” Kevin Butler (played by actor Jerry Lambert) talking about the company’s latest first-party titles. His most recent clip focuses on Sony’s latest kart racing game Mod Nation Racers, but at the end he mentions his “next project – let’s just say it’s a little racing game that rhymes with ‘man furismo jive'” with a knowing look – understandably raising quite a few eyebrows in our forums and around the web.

Here’s our first look at the Nurburgring GP course and the newly-revised Nordschleife in motion. Pay special attention to all of the spectators which have been added around the Nordschleife, which we first saw in last week’s batch of screenshots. Thanks to all who sent these in!

As many of you know, the father of the Gran Turismo series is competing in the Nurburgring 24 Hours race, going on right now. He’s driving the #72 Lexus IS-F with teammates Hideshi Matsuda, Owen Mildenhall, and Peter Lyon (learn more about them here). You can monitor their progress live on the race’s official website – they’ve even got streaming video coverage available right here. For audio coverage in English, tune in to Radio Le Mans (thanks for the shout-out on the air , guys!). I’ll update this post when the results are in. Good luck, Yamauchi-san!

This isn’t so much “breaking news” as it is “peace of mind”: Sony has prominently featured GT5 on its special E3 2010 website (click and drag the page to view the top left corner). This is, of course, a pleasant change from last year, when Sony actually requested the press not ask Yamauchi about the big game during interviews for what are now obvious reasons. E3 kicks off with Sony’s press conference at 11:30 AM PST on June 15th. As always, I’ll have everything you need to know right here, updated by the minute on the (hopefully) big day…

Peter Lyon, a MotorTrend editor who will be joining teammate Kazunori Yamauchi for this weekend’s 24 Hours Nurburgring race, was first to try out the latest demo including the Nurburgring GP circuit and described it as “simply stunning”. His most notable observation, though, was that of a new penalty system: