{"id":147782,"date":"2022-12-04T11:57:11","date_gmt":"2022-12-04T11:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/how-gran-turismo-returned-to-motorsports-forgotten-world\/"},"modified":"2022-12-04T11:57:11","modified_gmt":"2022-12-04T11:57:11","slug":"how-gran-turismo-returned-to-motorsports-forgotten-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/how-gran-turismo-returned-to-motorsports-forgotten-world\/","title":{"rendered":"How Gran Turismo returned to motorsport’s forgotten world"},"content":{"rendered":"
New champions were crowned in all three championships of this year’s Gran Turismo World Finals \u2013 the esports competition’s first in-person finale since 2019.<\/p>\n
Across four days there were three separate world final events that came to a crescendo at the very end with a final lap, three-way battle for the race and overall Nations Cup win in which one of the competitors was spun out of contention, sending the final result to a stewards decision.<\/p>\n
In the end, it was Spaniard Coque Lopez who kept first on track and was named the overall champion, besting Chile’s Angel Inostroza in a race that had as much action and drama as any real-world motorsport series could produce.<\/p>\n
\nAfter investigation, we have a result:@coquelopez14<\/a> is your 2022 Nations Cup Winner!#GT7<\/a> #GTWorldSeries<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/Zai3AZ39OP<\/a><\/p>\n
\u2014 Gran Turismo (@thegranturismo) November 27, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
All the drivers being in the same room and cameras following their every movement meant there was no hiding their emotions in the immediate aftermath, or in the press conference afterwards \u2013 where Inostroza even suggested that the race stewards should be changed in the future.<\/p>\n
Even the inclusion of press conferences, which made their debut in this year’s World Final, is a testament to the plans that PlayStation and Gran Turismo have to relaunch in-person events bigger and even better produced than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic began .<\/p>\n
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Despite the controversy of the Nations Cup final and how high emotions ran at the end of it, what is clear when speaking to the drivers is that they are motivated by passion and a genuine love of Gran Turismo rather than the lure of a big prize pot . In fact, there isn’t any reward for winning other than pride.<\/p>\n
The drivers get a participation fee for each final they take part in and they are paid for each day they are onsite at the event. So those who qualify for all three competitions in a World Series event could earn just over \u20ac1500, but that’s regardless of their finishing position.<\/p>\n
Even the winners of this year’s Manufacturers Cup still compete as a hobby, albeit one that has much more appeal with the turn of the in-person events which take drivers across the globe.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like the game and the events are unique in sim racing,\u201d Kylian Drumont, one of the three drivers for the winning Subaru team, told The Race. \u201cGran Turismo exhibits the very best [of sim racing].<\/p>\n
\u201cWith these in-person events, all the players are here and you can meet everyone \u2013 it’s a family.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The Gran Turismo World Series has staged events in Salzburg and Monaco this year but in 2018 and 2019 there were six in-person events held across three continents.<\/p>\n
Subaru’s Daniel Solis was keen to point out the appeal added by the globetrotting aspect of the series.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would love to make a career out of doing something I love because I work a dead-end job myself,\u201d Solis added. \u201cThere’s only so many things you can be good at and this is the one thing I found I can do relatively well.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo if I could go somewhere in the future with it that would be fantastic, but for now as long as I’m doing this I’m going to keep doing this until I can’t.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could get a career in motorsport but would it definitely take you to Monaco? So it’s just a crazy opportunity to be able to do this.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I don’t think too much about the future. I like to live in the moment, especially when it is as fun as it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Even Igor Fraga, who raced in the 2020 Formula 3 season amid a real-world motorsport career that pre-dates his virtual one, has returned to the Gran Turismo World Series out of a genuine love for the game series.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year I was able to complete the whole championship because of the Toyota GR GT Cup \u2013 it was the first year I was able to become champion,\u201d Fraga told The Race.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I have a long story with Gran Turismo as when I was a little kid I started to play and love Gran Turismo and they’ve been supporting me in the past years in real-life and you have to be grateful for everything that they have done for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The return of in-person events meant the Manufacturers Cup was able to implement a more endurance racing-esque format, with driver changes during the pitstops and a requirement for each driver to have a stint behind the wheel of each race.<\/p>\n
It also meant there was greater collaboration over race strategy compared to the one-driver-per-race format that was in place as a requirement during the online events.<\/p>\n
This explains Toyota’s brave but ultimately doomed decision to start on the full wet tires for the final race when everyone else was on the intermediates. It was a late decision made between the team-mates during the practice while Fraga was driving.<\/p>\n
\u201cI checked what tires Nissan were on and they were on intermediates,\u201d Nikita Moysov explained, \u201cwe were catching up pretty quickly to them and we were on wets at the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we thought that wets should be faster and that the rain would increase a lot, but it didn’t.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nwhat. a. move.#GT7<\/a> #GTWorldSeries<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/xe6gjHitvS<\/a><\/p>\n