History
Polyphony Digital announced its partnership with governing body Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile in June 2014 to provide a more realistic racing experience in virtual motorsport. It permitted the Japanese game developer to feature content certified by the FIA and launch an online championship in Gran Turismo 6 for the following year in 2015. [7] It would be the earliest example of an official online championship managed by Polyphony Digital and sanctioned by the FIA. The following year in 2016, Polyphony and the FIA announced the formation of the FIA-Certified Gran Turismo Championships (FIA GTC). [8]
The series was established in Gran Turismo Sport shortly after the game's release. Many test seasons ran from 2017 to 2018, and the first official season commenced that year. The first World Tour was also held at Nürburgring, which saw Giorgio Mangano from Italy emerge as the first Nations Cup event winner, and Philippe Nicolay, Matthew Thomas, and Anthony Duval, representing BMW, become the first Manufacturer Series event winners. [9] [10] Brazilian racing driver Igor Fraga became the inaugural Nations Cup champion in 2018, and Kanata Kawakami, Vincent Rigaud, and Tyrell Meadows also became the inaugural Manufacturer Series champions that year. [11] [12] [13] As part of the FIA's involvement as a sanctioning body, the champions were also honoured at the FIA Prize Giving Ceremony.
The format for the series changed in 2021 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. [14] All previously planned live events were dropped, and the season would instead be held online. Italian player Valerio Gallo won the 2021 World Finals and became the final Gran Turismo Sport champion.
The series transferred over to Gran Turismo 7 for the 2022 season. Polyphony's partnership with the FIA was also put on hiatus that year, with FIA's Director of Innovative Sporting Projects, Frederic Bertrand, stating that they would resume the collaboration once Gran Turismo 7 becomes a sufficiently stable platform. [4] [15] [16] As a result, the FIA name was dropped, and the tournament was renamed to the Gran Turismo World Series (GTWS). Two live events were reintroduced as part of the 2022 season, with the series returning to Hangar-7 in Salzburg, Austria for the Showdown and Monte-Carlo Sporting in Monte Carlo, Monaco for the World Finals.
In addition to the professional events, the tournament has hosted exhibition races since 2019. One of these exhibition races is known as 'Pro-Am', where competitors of the series would pair with various personalities, spanning from content creators to professional racing drivers, including former Formula One drivers Juan Pablo Montoya and seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton. [17] Exhibition races have also been hosted by Sony's artificial intelligence department, Sony AI, where select series drivers race against their agent known as 'Gran Turismo Sophy', [18] developed in collaboration by Sony AI, Sony Interactive Entertainment, and Polyphony Digital. This race is also used as a testing ground for Sony's AI team to evaluate Sophy's pace and behaviour on the race track. [19] [20]
Competitors of the series have seen opportunities in real-world motorsport through their participation in the series. Five-time tournament champion Takuma Miyazono raced in the first round of the 2025 Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie, racing in the VT2 production car class with Toyo Tires and Ring Racing. [21] Racing drivers have also competed in the series, including Brazilian Super Formula driver Igor Fraga and Japanese Super GT driver Rikuto Kobayashi. [22] Fraga's junior career beginning in 2019 was backed by Polyphony Digital, and they have supported Fraga's racing career since.
As of 2025, Brembo, Mazda, Toyota Gazoo Racing, and Fanatec serve as the series partners of the World Series. [23] The series is provided with clothing by Puma and peripherals by Fanatec.
2018 season
Before the "Online Series" is started, every season begins with a "World Tour" event, containing the top drivers from the season prior. The winner from the World Tour event gains direct access to the "World Final" event. [24]
A phase dubbed as the "Online Series", which is essentially a qualification phase to decide the participants that will race in the live events of the championship tournament, kicks off every season. The Online Series is divided into four stages, with each stage hosting ten rounds. [25] By the end of each stage, another World Tour event is hosted, which includes the top players from that stage instead of the top drivers from the previous season. [25] The top players who are selected after the series must sign an application form in order to be able to participate for the World Tour events, and they must also be over 18. [25] [26] The Online Series goes on for five to seven months. [25]
The "Live Events" begin after the Online Series. The Nations Cup category includes the top 90 players (30 per region) with the highest points across all four stages. Three different live events occur, with each live event carrying a specific world region. The top 10 players from those regions enter the "World Final" event, a championship stage to decide the number one player. The Manufacturer Series category includes the top 48 players (three players per region) and 16 manufacturers with the highest points across all four stages. The top players and manufacturers participate in the "World Final" event, to decide the top three players and the number one manufacturer. [27] The winners of their respective series at the "World Final" are crowned either Nations Cup champion or Manufacturer Series champion.
2020 season
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was announced that the 2020 World Finals would be held as an online-based event. [28]
Further format changes were made for 2021, where the online season (named World Series) was divided into six online races (replacing the physical World Tours), four of them containing one race for Nations Cup and Manufacturer Series, plus the mid-season "Showdown" playoff races and the grand finals, which were aired as tape delayed streams. The first two World Series races featured top competitors from the previous season (16 Nations Cup drivers and 12 Manufacturer Series players that chose the same manufacturer as with the previous season, with limit of one player per brand), after which they would race together against top players from the first half of the online qualifiers (the in-game races accessible to the general public) in the Showdown to determine who would advance to the next two stages. Players that advanced to the third and fourth round would then face opponents that qualified in the second half of the online qualifiers through the same criteria in the grand finals. [14]
2023 season
The Nations Cup format saw a switch from a single-driver series to a team-based event, a format previously used by Polyphony Digital in 2018 at the Hangar-7 World Tour. [29]
The online season was divided into fourteen online races (seven rounds per series), in which top players would race against each other to determine who would qualify for both the Showdown event in August and for the World Tour grand finals in December. For the new team-based Nations Cup format, entries were decided based on the highest finishing players affiliated with their country in the points standings. The top three competitors of each country would form the lineup for their respective team.
Events with live audiences also returned in 2023 for the first time since the 2020 Sydney World Tour event, with the Showdown round in Theater Amsterdam at Amsterdam, the Netherlands. [30]
Players can participate in the Online Series from within the Sport mode of Gran Turismo 7 . Players that register are separated in three leagues based on in-game driver rating; 'GT1 League' with a driver rating of A and higher, 'GT2 League' with a driver rating of B, and 'GT3 League' with a driver rating of C and lower. However, only those in the GT1 League are eligible for participation in the World Series and World Finals live events. [31]
Champions
There have been seven different Nations Cup champions and fifteen different individual Manufacturers Cup champions as of 2024, in addition to four different Manufacturers Cup winning manufacturers and six different Toyota GR GT Cup winners.
Six drivers – Igor Fraga, Tomoaki Yamanaka, Takuma Miyazono, Daniel Solis, Coque López and Kanata Kawakami – currently hold the most individual Manufacturers Cup titles with two each, Fraga and Yamanaka for Toyota, Miyazono and Solis for Subaru, and Kawakami and López for Lexus.
Takuma Miyazono is currently the most successful driver in the Gran Turismo World Series, with a total of five individual championship titles to his name: one Toyota GR GT Cup title, two Nations Cup titles and two Manufacturers Cup titles. Igor Fraga and Coque López hold a total of four individual championship titles each, with Fraga having one Toyota GR GT Cup title, one Nations Cup title and two Manufacturer Cup titles, and López having two Nations Cup titles and two Manufacturers Cup titles. Miyazono scored a treble in 2020 by winning the Toyota GR GT Cup and both GT World Series championships. López became the first repeat Nations Cup champion after scoring a second consecutive Nations Cup championship title in 2023, the only time the Nations Cup was run on a team-based format so far, alongside his compatriots José Serrano and Pol Urra, the latter of whom also won that year's Toyota GR GT Cup championship.
Igor Fraga, Mikail Hizal, Takuma Miyazono and Coque López all hold the distinction for having won both the Nations Cup and Manufacturers Cup championships in the Gran Turismo World Series. Fraga is also the only driver to have won a championship in both the GTWS and real-world motorsport. [36]
| Season | Nations Cup | Manufacturers Cup | Toyota GR GT Cup |
|---|
| 2018 |  Igor Fraga |  Kanata Kawakami
 Tyrell Meadows
 Vincent Rigaud | Lexus | Not held |
|---|
| 2019 |  Mikail Hizal | Rayan Derrouiche
Igor Fraga
Tomoaki Yamanaka | Toyota | Mikail Hizal |
|---|
| 2020 | Takuma Miyazono | Mikail Hizal
Takuma Miyazono
Daniel Solis | Subaru | Takuma Miyazono |
|---|
| 2021 |  Valerio Gallo | Igor Fraga
 Coque López
Tomoaki Yamanaka | Toyota | Tomoaki Yamanaka |
|---|
| 2022 | Coque López | Kylian Drumont
Takuma Miyazono
Daniel Solis | Subaru | Igor Fraga |
|---|
| 2023 | Pol Urra
Coque López
José Serrano | Mehdi Hafidi
Ryota Kokubun
 Mateo Estevez | Nissan | Pol Urra |
|---|
| 2024 | Takuma Miyazono | Kanata Kawakami
Coque López
 Harald Walsen | Lexus | José Serrano |
|---|
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Takuma Miyazono
Coque López
Harald Walsen
