Sports car racing is a form of motorsport road racing which utilises sports cars that have two seats and enclosed wheels. They may be either purpose-built sports prototypes which are the highest level in sports car racing or grand tourers based on road-going models and therefore, in general, not as fast as sports prototypes. Sports car racing is one of the main types of circuit auto racing, alongside open-wheel racing, touring car racing and stock car racing. Sports car races are often, though not always, endurance races that are run over particularly long distances or large amounts of time, resulting in a larger emphasis on the reliability and efficiency of the car and its drivers as opposed to outright car performance or driver skills. The FIA World Endurance Championship is an example of one of the best known sports car racing series.
The World Rally Championship is an international rallying series owned and governed by the FIA. Inaugurated in 1973, it is the second oldest of the FIA's world championships after Formula One. Each season lasts one calendar year, and separate championship titles are awarded to drivers, co-drivers and manufacturers. There are also two support championships, WRC2 and WRC3, which are contested on the same events and stages as the WRC, but with progressively lower maximum performance and running costs of the cars permitted. Junior WRC is also contested on five events of the World Rally Championship calendar.
Fuji Speedway is a motorsport race track standing in the foothills of Mount Fuji, in Oyama, Suntō District, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. It was built in the early 1960s. In the 1980s, Fuji Speedway was used for the FIA World Sportscar Championship and national racing. Originally managed by Mitsubishi Estate, Fuji Speedway was acquired by Toyota in 2000. The circuit hosted the Formula One 2007 Japanese Grand Prix after an absence of nearly 30 years, replacing the Suzuka Circuit owned by Honda. After Fuji Speedway hosted the 2008 race, the Japanese Grand Prix returned to Suzuka for races from 2009 onward. The Super GT Fuji 500 km race is held at the racetrack on Golden Week.
Gran Turismo (GT) is a series of sim racing video games developed by Polyphony Digital. Released for PlayStation systems, Gran Turismo games are intended to emulate the appearance and performance of a large selection of vehicles, most of which are licensed reproductions of real-world automobiles. Since the franchise's debut in 1997, over 90 million units have been sold worldwide, making it the highest selling video game franchise under the PlayStation brand.
A grand tourer (GT) is a type of car that is designed for high speed and long-distance driving with performance and luxury. The most common format is a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive two-door coupé with either a two-seat or a 2+2 arrangement. Grand tourers are often the coupé derivative of luxury saloons or sedans. Some models, such as the Ferrari 250 GT, Jaguar E-Type, and Aston Martin DB5, are considered classic examples of gran turismo cars.
Simulated racing or racing simulation, commonly known as simply sim racing, are the collective terms for racing game software that attempts to accurately simulate auto racing, complete with real-world variables such as fuel usage, damage, tire wear and grip, and suspension settings. To be competitive in sim racing, a driver must understand all aspects of car handling that make real-world racing so difficult, such as threshold braking, how to maintain control of a car as the tires lose traction, and how properly to enter and exit a turn without sacrificing speed. It is this level of difficulty that distinguishes sim racing from arcade racing-style driving games where real-world variables are taken out of the equation and the principal objective is to create a sense of speed as opposed to a sense of realism like the Need for Speed series.
The 24 Hours of Spa is an endurance racing event for cars held annually since 1924 at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Stavelot, Belgium. It is currently sponsored by CrowdStrike.
Polyphony Digital Inc. is an internal Japanese first-party video game development studio for PlayStation Studios. Originally a development group within Sony Computer Entertainment's Japan Studio known as Polys Entertainment, after the success of Gran Turismo in Japan, they were granted greater autonomy, reestablished as an individual company and renamed themselves Polyphony Digital. It currently has four studios: two studios in Japan, one studio in the Netherlands, and another one in the United States.
Circuit Ricardo Tormo, also known as Circuit de Valencia and officially named Circuit de la Comunitat Valenciana Ricardo Tormo, is a 4.005 km (2.489 mi) motorsport race track located in Cheste and built in 1999. The track is named after Spanish, two-time world champion Grand Prix motorcycle racer Ricardo Tormo (1952–1998), who died in 1998 of leukemia. It has a capacity of 165,000 and a main straight of 0.876 km (0.544 mi).
The Macau Grand Prix is an annual motorsport road racing event for automobiles and motorcycles held on the Guia Circuit in Macau. The event includes the Formula Regional and Motorcycle Grand Prix title races, with other races for touring, grand touring and sports cars.
The Vision Gran Turismo program is a simulator program used by many car manufacturers, such as Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari and Bugatti. These cars appeared originally in Gran Turismo 6, and later made an appearance in each subsequent Gran Turismo installment, all developed by Polyphony Digital. For the most part, they apply present-day technology and materials, with a handful of notable exceptions that utilize novel propulsion and aerodynamic technologies. Their appearance as free update content has been staggered since the launch of GT6 in 2013, with each one being available for download upon release.
Gran Turismo 5 is a 2010 sim racing video game developed by Polyphony Digital and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 3. It is the fifth main installment and the tenth overall in the Gran Turismo series. It was released on November 24, 2010, in Europe and North America, and November 25, 2010, in Japan and Australasia. It was preceded by the Prologue version and is the first main entry of the series to be released for the PlayStation 3.
The Trofeo Maserati is a single-marque motorsport championship that was started by Maserati Corse in 2003, with the introduction of the Maserati Coupé. Its title is commonly confused as Maserati Trofeo, which in fact refers to the name devised for the 4200 Coupé built for the series. However, in recent years Maserati themselves have been very inconsistent regarding the name of the championship, making it hard to define what is officially correct. In this article, the series will be referred to as Trofeo Maserati.
James Alan Broadbent is an English social media personality, commentator, and racing driver. He has over 950,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, with content related to gaming, sim racing, and real life racing. Broadbent most recently competed in the 2022 Praga Cup, in which he won the teams and drivers championships in with his entry Team87 and teammate Gordie Mutch. He also commentates for the Gran Turismo World Series esports tournament.
Jann Mardenborough is a British professional racing driver. In 2011 he became the third and youngest winner of the GT Academy competition, beating 90,000 entrants to earn a professional racing contract with Nissan. He had no previous motorsport experience, having played sim racing video games instead. During his career, he has finished on the podium in his class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, won races and contended for titles in GT3 and junior formula cars, and competed at the highest level in Super GT, Super Formula and the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Group GT3, known technically as Cup Grand Touring Cars and commonly referred to as simply GT3, is a set of regulations maintained by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) for grand tourer racing cars designed for use in various auto racing series throughout the world. The GT3 category was initially created in 2005 by the SRO Motorsports Group as a third rung in the ladder of grand touring motorsport, below the Group GT1 and Group GT2 categories which were utilized in the SRO's FIA GT Championship, and launched its own series in 2006 called the FIA GT3 European Championship. Since then, Group GT3 has expanded to become the de facto category for many national and international grand touring series, although some series modify the ruleset from the FIA standard. By 2013, nearly 20 automobile manufacturers have built or been represented with GT3 machines.
GT Academy is a television programme that was produced by Grand Central Entertainment and funded by Nissan and Sony Interactive Entertainment from 2008 to 2016. GT Academy provided skilled Gran Turismo players an opportunity to earn a real-life professional racing career with Nissan.
Gran Turismo Sport is a 2017 sim racing video game developed by Polyphony Digital and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4. It is the twelfth game in the Gran Turismo series.
Assetto Corsa Competizione is a sim racing video game developed by Italian video game developer Kunos Simulazioni. The game focuses on GT3, GT4, GT2 and one make series cars and is an officially licensed simulation of the GT World Challenge Europe and the Total 24 Hours of Spa covering seasons from 2018 to 2023, and is set to serve as a platform for esports.
Igor Omura Fraga is a Japanese-born Brazilian racing driver, esports player, and former member of the Red Bull Junior Team. He currently competes for Nakajima Racing in the 2025 Super Formula Championship. He was the 2020 Toyota Racing Series champion, winning the title by six points ahead of Liam Lawson. Fraga also currently serves as the esports ambassador for the Super Formula Championship.
2024 GTWS season 
José Serrano
Takuma Miyazono
Harald Walsen
