With the Manufacturers Cup portion of the 2025 Gran Turismo World Series World Finals already concluded — and Team Porsche taking a landmark victory — it’s now the turn of the Nations Cup to round out the season.
It’s the climax to a season which began back in April with a short online qualification season to pick the nine drivers who’d join 2024’s top three to fight it out for the title over the four live events this year. Each of the four — in London, Berlin, Los Angeles, and now Fukuoka — was hosted by a city entirely new to the GT World Series.
Unlike the Manufacturers Cup, the Nations Cup sees the same dozen drivers lock horns across the whole season and with three races already under their belts they should all known what to expect from one another by now — and only three more races separate them from the all-important trophy, based on Umberto Boccioni’s “Unique Forms of Continuity in Space“.
The points picked up in the three previous live rounds will be added to those gained in the World Finals event — where there are far more available — to comprise the overall World Series score, and the driver with the most across all four live events will raise that trophy aloft.
Gran Turismo World Series 2025 World Final – Nations Cup
There’s a mild change to the way things are set up this time round, with drivers beginning with a hot-lap qualification session at the brand-new Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in the also-new F3500-B, both as added in the recent Spec III update. This is not the combination for the final race, however…
From there the action moves to the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, where the drivers will race an eight-lap sprint in their choice of 12 Gr.1 cars — per the current special Time Trial event. The qualifier above sets the grid and the order in which the racers can pick their cars.
This race’s result determines the grid for the next, which returns to the F3500-B/CGV combination for a 17-lap race with a required tire switch between the Medium and Soft grades — though the players can pick with which tire they start the race.
That leads into the Grand Final, which takes us back to the Nurburgring 24h circuit for a familiar, seven-lap race in the X2019 Competition cars, with all three tire grades required. You’ll probably spot that this is a carbon copy of the 2024 final, and most will be hoping for a different result (and, for some, different stewards).
Gran Turismo World Series 2025 World Series – Nations Cup Standings
- 1 – Jose Serrano (Spain) – 17 points
- 2 – Pol Urra (Spain) – 12 points
- 3 – Valerio Gallo (Italy) – 11 points
- 4 – Takuma Miyazono (Japan) – 7 points
- 5 – Kylian Drumont (France) – 6 points
- 6 – Takuma Sasaki (Japan) – 5 points
- 7 – Kaj de Bruin (Netherlands) – 4 points
- 8 – Guy Barbara (Australia) – 1 point
Heading into the finals, it looks like it’s one driver’s event to lose. Jose Serrano has been almost uncatchable this year, leading countryman Pol Urra by a small margin in London, and a larger one in Berlin (thanks to a pit strategy mixup), before Urra eked out the win in Los Angeles — with Serrano second.
The Spaniard, joint-winner in 2023 with Team Spain in the only team event, will be looking to cement a first solo title and back up his Manufacturers title yesterday to become only the second player to do the one-season double — after defending champion Takuma Miyazono in 2020.
Hot on his heels is Pol Urra, who’s seemingly been the only driver to have the same race-pace as Serrano this season and if not for the aforementioned “I am stupid” moment would be just one point behind instead of five. With 48 points on offer here tonight, that’s still not as big a gap as it seems.
Behind them are two drivers with solo titles to their name. Valerio Gallo has been constantly lurking in the wings — as we saw in an impressive display in the Honda at Sardegna in Manufacturers — as he seeks his first in-person GTWS title, while two-time champion Takuma Miyazono hasn’t had the best season to date but still has good points to his name. He’s going to need the equivalent points gap of better than 1-2 to Serrano in all three races though.
While the others may be needing a lot more to take the title, we’re not going to rule anyone out — even the four yet to score. There’s simply too many points on offer in the final and virtually anything can happen in the heat of battle; we recall the 2022 final when the overall championship lead changed three times in the final three corners (and the stewards’ office afterwards).
You’ll be able to tune into the stream from 0600 UTC on Sunday, December 21 (convert to your time here; bear in mind the early, Eastern hour will place this on Saturday for the US west coast) and along with the usual additional language streams with commentary in French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish, we once again see the Chinese commentary which debuted in London, and live-timing stream.
Gran Turismo World Series 2025 World Final Nations Cup – Alternative Language Streams
- Chinese
- French
- German
- Italian
- Japanese
- Portuguese
- Spanish
- Live Timing (no commentary)
Gran Turismo World Series 2025 World Final Nations Cup – Predict the Winner/Viewer’s Gift
As usual there’s two linked campaigns that alongside events in Fukuoka. Watching any amount of the stream through a special tile within your Gran Turismo 7 game over the next two weeks will land you a you’ll also earn an example of the F3500-B in the winning nation’s livery, to be delivered after the next GT7 game update. If you can successfully predict which driver will win the championship — which you can do again through GT7, and any time until the Grand Final race begins — you’ll land 1,000,000cr for your in-game wallet.
Gran Turismo World Series 2025 World Final Nations Cup – Competitors
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