After months of waiting, the final pieces of the 2026 Gran Turismo World Series calendar have finally clicked into place — and there’s plenty to unpack.
Polyphony Digital has confirmed that the championship will head to Singapore later this year, marking the first time the Gran Turismo World Series has ever been staged in Southeast Asia. The event is scheduled for October 3 and adds another flag to a global map that just keeps growing.
You have to go all the way back to the 2020 World Tour opener in Sydney to find the last time Gran Turismo staged an event anywhere close to this region of the world. It was an event that, at the time, set a new benchmark for the championship in terms of competition, atmosphere, and production. Singapore has some big shoes to fill, but the city’s pedigree as a motorsport destination (and a longtime fixture on the Formula 1 calendar) means it’s hardly an outsider when it comes to hosting world-class racing.
A Private Round at Polyphony Digital HQ
The other half of today’s announcement is arguably the more unusual one.
Round 2 of the 2026 season (effectively the replacement for the cancelled Abu Dhabi opener) will be held at Polyphony Digital’s own Tokyo studio, and will be broadcast “as Premiere” on August 15.
Unfortunately, there will be no ticket sales. Polyphony has explicitly stated the event will not be open to the public, and no spectator tickets will be made available. That’s a departure from how the championship has operated in recent years.
Since the World Series returned to in-person competition after the pandemic, with a few exceptions, most events have been open to the public at ticketed venues. A closed-door round inside Polyphony’s own offices is something we haven’t seen before, and it raises some interesting questions about how the broadcast will be handled and what the atmosphere will feel like without a live crowd.
On the other hand, there’s a certain logic to it. With Abu Dhabi falling through on relatively short notice, finding a new venue, securing a date, arranging logistics, and selling tickets to an entirely new audience would have been a tall order. Hosting the round at the studio sidesteps all of that, and gives the competing drivers a rare opportunity to spend time inside the building where the game itself is made.
Notably, this will also be the first time a city has hosted two rounds of the World Series in the same year: the World Finals will return to Tokyo in December. It also means the first Milan will be the only World Series destination in 2026 outside of Asia.
The Full 2026 Calendar
With Singapore and the Tokyo studio round now locked in, the 2026 calendar is finally complete. Here’s how the four-round championship shapes up:
- Rd.1 – Milan — May 23
- Rd.2 – Tokyo — August 15 (spectator tickets not be available)
- Rd.3 – Singapore — October 3
- World Finals – Tokyo — December 5-6
More details on the Singapore venue and ticketing should be coming in due course.
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