Shanghai International Circuit Coming to GT Sport?

shanghai-international-circuit-home-of-the-formula-one-chinese-grand-prix

While nothing substantial has been revealed courtesy of GT Sport’s visit to China — at least in terms of new content shown — the interviews that continue to surface shed light on a number of subjects that highlight continued support for the title past its release later this year.

As a result of these interviews we’ve now been made aware that once it’s all said and done, GT Sport could eventually boast a roster of up to 500 cars, the upcoming entry is now 70% complete with updates occurring daily, and that it very well could have been called GT7 Sport as it offers the same complete experience as other entries in the franchise.

Continuing with the recent interview with Chinese news outlet Sina, Kazunori Yamauchi has revealed that plans are afoot to bring the Shanghai International Circuit, home of the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix, to GT Sport.

“We’ve actually wanted to add the Shanghai International Circuit since a while back, and we’re currently making arrangements.”

shanghai_international_circuit_by_heitu
February 12th, 2006, image courtesy of heitu on DeviantArt.

If you’ll recall, this isn’t the first time the circuit has been discussed with relation to it being included in a Gran Turismo title. Back in 2012 Kazunori discussed with the Chinese media that he would be visiting the track to consider what elements could be used in the game. With the competitive focus of GT Sport, now is the time to include the FIA-approved circuit.

The Chinese government has sought after a home to host the Chinese Grand Prix since the early 90’s. Originally planned to be the Zhuhai International Circuit that was provisionally added to the 1999 F1 calendar, the circuit failed to meet the approval of the FIA. It wasn’t until 2002 that the Shanghai International Circuit was secured as the host for the Chinese Grand Prix, hosting its inaugural race on September 26th, 2004.

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Comments (32)

  1. Martin DS

    Good news, I love the first corner, the one that is like a spiral, I think its called the caracole or something like that. Really hard to break through the whole turn and then start pushing the throttle very carefully as it changes too the second corner.

  2. Normalaatsra

    I think Sepang is more likely to appear in GT Sport than Zhuhai, but I am only basing my statements over a couple Malaysian photo scapes that prove PD’s development presence in the area.

  3. ribloGT

    Tillkedromes are usually awful and shanghai is one of the worst… i Hope it will not be included…
    With all the beautiful tracks in the world really Shanghai? not good…

  4. TomBrady

    I kind of hope not. I’m all for new tracks but there’s just so many tracks I’d rather see just on the F1 calendar alone let alone everything else.

  5. VeilSide FD3s

    It’s cool and all but when will kazunori yamauchi finally understand that Canada has circuits And cars too??? I mean we have one the best circuit in the world (circuit Gilles Villeneuve) etc… And we make some cool litle cars too! But I guess as always we Will stay forgotten… Shame on us.

    1. Kyle Patrick

      I’m partial to Circuit Mont-Tremblant myself, but I agree, it’d be nice to see some Canadian tracks in more racing games.

    2. TomBrady

      I have to agree that Canada has many better circuits that are better than this. Mosport, Montreal, Mont Tremblant to name a few.

      PD tends to focus more on cars and tracks in their area though. I just don’t get why they can’t give us Macau.

    1. iName

      Given that the last game ever to have Ebisu was NFS Shift 2, you might as well keep waiting. It’s gonna be a while… .-.

    2. blackjack

      Considering there is so much Japanese drifting culture around that track and it’s relatively small scale in comparison to Nurburg ring I’m surprised it hasn’t been created a long time ago. :-(

    1. Scuderia Paul

      I think Istanbul is a fine circuit and those in Korea and India are too but the interest just wasn’t there in those countries.

  6. TeamCZRRacing

    I’m not really a big fan of this or any Tilkedrome (aside from CotA, Red Bull Ring and that awesome-looking new city circuit on the F1 calendar this year), but I realize this track has a lot of fans worldwide, so I’d be glad for them if it were to be included in GT:S. Heck, even I may bang out a lap or two in various cars just for the fun of it.

  7. Scuderia Paul

    It would be great to see the Shanghai International Circuit added to GTS. Chances are it would be in the follow-up to GTS though.

    1. TeamCZRRacing

      “Making arrangements” could mean anything. One thing that I learned from being a pCARS beta tester was that, usually, development on a given track takes place at the same time that licensing negotiations are going on. For all we know, the actual in-game track could be complete or very nearly so, in which case its release date would likely come down solely to whenever negotiations ended. So, for instance, if negotiations were to wrap up before the game’s release, then it would be in the base game, whereas if they ended later, the track would be included either in an update or in a DLC pack.

    2. Samus

      Or he could have meant they were making arrangements to go to the track and start scanning it, in which case it’s a long way off.

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