Porsche has become the very first non-Japanese brand to take the Gran Turismo World Series Manufacturers Cup title, in the first World Final to be held in Japan.
The German marque had been improving across the season, after scoring zero in London following the race’s only penalty-worthy incident with defending champion Lexus, taking victory last time out in Los Angeles. That form continued into Fukuoka, with three wins from the four races including the important, double-point Grand Final to secure a maiden title.
Along with a first championship for Porsche it’s a first series win for all three of the drivers, at least in Manufacturers Cup. Jose Serrano, of course, previously won the Nations Cup as part of Team Spain in 2023, and becomes only the third driver to complete the Nations/Manufacturers/Toyota treble — and likely the last, with the Toyota series now over. Veterans Shota Sato and Angel Inostroza pick up their first overall trophies, after different fortunes in previous seasons.
Gran Turismo World Series Manufacturers Cup 2025 – Race 1
The format for 2025 was a return to the well-known setup used before last season, with three individual races for the three representatives of each brand before a Grand Final with mandatory driver stints. It all began with a qualifying session at the Grand Final venue: the new Yas Marina circuit.
That would bode well for joint-second placed Mazda, taking pole position at the hands of Pol Urra by a little less than a tenth from Subaru’s Kylian Drumont. Porsche would take third through Jose Serrano, while BMW — tied with Mazda going in — could only land in 11th.
Not that this would matter so much for the first race, which would be a ten-lap slipstream battle at the Daytona Tri-Oval. If that wasn’t already quite meme-worthy enough (or at least repechage-worthy), the race also saw a red flag after very early crashes for Nissan, Porsche, and Subaru in a bump-draft chain.
That reset the field to the end of the previous lap, leaving Nissan down in 12th but at least back on the chain, but didn’t stop the incidents. Now shortened to a six-lapper, a further four cars ended up pointing the wrong way as a twitch for the Lamborghini took out the Ferrari, and the BMW appeared to tag the Mercedes into a spin which obliterated the Honda — yet there was no second red flag.
Unsurprisingly there were few other passes for position, giving Mazda, Subaru, and Porsche a pretty stressful but otherwise simple run to the podium.
Gran Turismo World Series Manufacturers Cup 2025 – Race 1 Results
- Team Mazda (Samuel Cardinal) – Mazda RX-Vision GT3 – 10 laps
- Team Subaru (Daniel Solis) – Subaru BRZ GT300 – +0.054s
- Team Porsche (Shota Sato) – Porsche 911 RSR – +0.107s
Gran Turismo World Series Manufacturers Cup 2025 – Standings (After Race 1)
- Team Mazda (Cardinal/Kokubun/Urra) – 22 points
- Team Subaru (Drumont/Miyazono/Solis) – 22 points
- Team Porsche (Inostroza/Sato/Serrano) – 17 points
Gran Turismo World Series Manufacturers Cup 2025 – Race 2
That set the grid for the second race, with only a slightly smaller dice-rolling aspect to it in pouring rain at the Autopolis circuit. Unsurprisingly, all 12 cars opted for the full Wet tire for this one, and the lead trio soon started to escape from the pack behind.
Unlike Daytona, it wasn’t entirely in the same order though. Jose Serrano was now at the wheel of the 911 and scythed around the outside of Miyazono’s Subaru into turn three on the first lap to climb into second.
Just behind, the breakaway was being aided by door-banging between the Nissan and Toyota. That escalated into a first-turn crash, with Hiroshi Okumoto surprisingly going unpunished for tipping Kenta Morimoto’s Supra into a spin.
It wasn’t the only significant collision either, as just one lap later there was an enormous — and significant — impact that saw the Naif Alfaleh brake far too late in the Lamborghini, perhaps too focused on Kanata Kawakami’s Lexus, and collect both Lucas Bonelli’s Mercedes and the BMW of Thomas Labouteley.
As well as a two-second penalty for Lamborghini, Mercedes also collected one. The incident that precipitated this wasn’t seen, but the BMW was spotted all-but abandoned on the outside of the turn six hairpin later that same lap.
The Porsche though was on the move again, with Serrano sending the same pass in the same place around the outside of Urra’s Mazda to take the race lead. That brought the trio onto the same patch of track for the final two and a bit laps, and an entertaining scrap, but without further changes of position.
Gran Turismo World Series Manufacturers Cup 2025 – Race 2 Results
- Team Porsche (Jose Serrano) – Porsche 911 RSR – 5 laps
- Team Mazda (Pol Urra) – Mazda RX-Vision GT3 – +0.157s
- Team Subaru (Takuma Miyazono) – Subaru BRZ GT300 – +1.015s
Gran Turismo World Series Manufacturers Cup 2025 – Standings (After Race 2)
- Team Mazda (Cardinal/Kokubun/Urra) – 32 points
- Team Subaru (Drumont/Miyazono/Solis) – 30 points
- Team Porsche (Inostroza/Sato/Serrano) – 29 points
Gran Turismo World Series Manufacturers Cup 2025 – Race 3
After two pretty unorthodox races, the third was a dose of the normal as the remaining drivers faced off in a seven-lap scrap around the Sardegna Road Track A course.
For the most part the initial exchanges were muted, other than further back in the pack where a nice bit of awareness from 2021 world champion Valerio Gallo saw the Honda pick up a spot when Noah Lanuza overcooked his turn one braking and hipped the Mercedes into Simon Rosenberger’s Lamborghini ahead. As this was a squabble over eighth, it didn’t seem like much at the time…
Up front, Angel Inostroza was holding the lead in the Porsche but couldn’t shake off Ryota Kokbun’s Mazda or Kylian Drumont’s Subaru until all three came under attack from the charging Nissan of Mikolaj Sedziak. A poor final corner from Inostroza brought the lead four together, becoming the butterfly for the ensuing hurricane.
With the Mazda checked up, Drumont made a cheeky send through the sharply left-handed “Piaggio” turn seven, leaning Kokubun out on exit. That also let Sedziak through on the inside, setting up a chase down the main straight. Drumont mounted as much defense as he could in the BRZ, but braked too late to give the Nissan the undercut as Kokubun cheekily forced the issue through the turn three kink.
That put the Nissan and Mazda side-by-side into the awkward turn four, with Sedziak ending up pushed off the outside and into the gravel — and despite what appeared absolutely righteous indignation drew no penalty for Kokubun.
Sneaking into all this was Gallo, who’d worked his way up the order in the Honda anchor and went clean round the outside of turn five past the Subaru and Mazda to jump into second. But the drama wasn’t done, as Drumont pounced into Piaggo again to take second back while the displaced Mazda ended up being shouldered by just about everyone to drop down to sixth.
With the BRZ lacking in a straight line, Gallo just drove right past on the straight to reclaim second, quite some distance back from Inostroza’s Porsche who’d been well clear of all of this. A scrap between the Lexus and McLaren allowed the Mazda back past the latter as Jay Murphy ended up being walled through turn seven, with a penalty for the incident applied to Giorgio Mangano’s defending champion car gifting a further spot back to the 2025 contender.
Gran Turismo World Series Manufacturers Cup 2025 – Race 3 Results
- Team Porsche (Angel Inostroza) – Porsche 911 RSR – 7 laps
- Team Honda (Valerio Gallo) – Honda NSX Gr.3 – +2.277s
- Team Subaru (Takuma Miyazono) – Subaru BRZ GT300 – +2.748s
Gran Turismo World Series Manufacturers Cup 2025 – Standings (After Race 3)
- Team Porsche (Inostroza/Sato/Serrano) – 41 points
- Team Mazda (Cardinal/Kokubun/Urra) – 39 points
- Team Subaru (Drumont/Miyazono/Solis) – 38 points
Gran Turismo World Series Manufacturers Cup 2025 – Grand Final
There’d not been a change in the championship lead since Subaru won the first race of the season in London, and now we’d seen two in two races with Mazda taking an outright lead after Autopolis and Porsche hitting the front with the Sardegna win. With the double-points finale, almost every permutation was still on the table.
With 20 laps to go, Porsche and Mazda set their stalls out early on the softest rubber, and Urra was quick to make the advantage count as he slotted past the medium-shod Subaru and the Honda on hards in one single move into turn five. The duo would then build a lead over the Lexus (Mangano) and Subaru (Miyazono), as the only two cars on mediums at this point in the race.
Strategy would be key, and it was Mazda first to blink by diving in for a first driver and tire change at the end of lap five — along with every single car on hards. Inostroza would press on, but the wearing softs led to a mild excursion at the exit of turn three and a half-second track limits penalty; with Porsche stopping the next time round, Serrano would take over and come out a second behind the Mazda.
With almost everyone now on mediums (except the backmarking Ferrari) the gaps were more-or-less neutralised for a few laps. Subaru and Lexus, who’d started on that tire, were now in the lead having not stopped, but Miyazono would come in surprisingly early at the tail end of lap eight to hand over to Drumont on the soft tires. With Lexus ducking in for hards a lap later, the two championship leaders resumed the race lead.
Serrano gradually ate into the Mazda’s lead, putting the Porsche to the front into the turn six/seven chicane on lap ten, but couldn’t shake off Kokubun as the duo kept a healthy gap to the soft-running Subaru behind over the next four laps.
Disaster almost struck on lap 14 though. After several looks into turn nine, Kokubun finally got too close and tagged the rear of the Porsche into a half spin. Serrano made a stunning save, with the Mazda electing to hang back to allow the Porsche to keep position — likely saving Kokubun from a penalty — but the pair lost a couple of seconds to Drumont in the Subaru.
The final pit stops came the next lap with the lead trio all having to switch to the hard tires while the majority of the pack was now on softs. That was bad news for Daniel Solis, in the Subaru, with the BMW right on his tail, but the Porsche and Mazda — now driven by Shota Sato and Samuel Cardinal respectively — had six seconds’ advantage with five laps to go.
Giving away just about 1.5 seconds a lap on tire differential, Subaru couldn’t put up much of a fight and had to watch Seiya Suzuka in the BMW and Lucas Bonelli’s Mercedes cruise past in the final two corners. Bonelli would take third into the turn six/seven chicane as they both closed the gap on the lead duo — even as Cardinal was gaining on Sato.
Two became three on the penultimate lap with the Mercedes now well in the mix and gaining hand over fist. Sure enough, the chicane became the focus again, as Bonelli split the lead pairing to jump the Mazda into second. That set up a dash to turn nine, and as the Mercedes leapt out to take the wide line he found a Mazda right alongside him.
Once again contact came, half-spinning Bonelli, but this time it did draw a penalty with Cardinal garnished a two-second slow-down — on the very last lap. It looked harsh for this specific incident, but the team had been on borrowed time from earlier clashes.
Despite the close attentions of Suzuki in the BMW and a final warning for track limits, Sato was able to keep it clean to take the checkered flag and the historic first championship for a non-Japanese brand along with it.
Gran Turismo World Series Manufacturers Cup 2025 – Grand Final Race Results
- 1. Team Porsche – Porsche 911 RSR – Inostroza/Sato/Serrano – 20 laps
- 2. Team BMW – BMW M6 GT3 – Haywood/Labouteley/Suzuki – +1.768s
- 3. Team Mazda – Mazda RX-Vision GT3 – Cardinal/Kokubun/Urra – +3.880s
Gran Turismo World Series Manufacturers Cup 2025 Final Points Standings (Top Six)
- 1. Team Porsche – 65 points
- 2. Team Mazda – 55 points
- 3. Team Subaru – 48 points
- 4. Team BMW- 38 points
- 5. Team Nissan – 32 points
- 6. Team Lexus – 26 points
While ultimately a comfortable victory for Porsche to claim its first title the brand only really dominated one race, with the points totals belying how close it all was — and how different it could have been. Nonetheless, after years of being almost winners, Porsche finally has its hands on the trophy.
For Jose Serrano it’s a third successive season with a title, after the team Nations Cup in 2023 and the now-defunct Toyota GR GT Cup in 2024. He’s also currently the points leader — by five, from countryman Pol Urra — in the Nations Cup, which is next up tomorrow.
You can tune in to that, the final action of the 2025 GT World Series season, from 0600 UTC on Sunday December 21.
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