The Gran Turismo World Series heads to Southeast Asia for the first time this weekend, with Round 3 taking over the Sands Theatre inside Marina Bay Sands in Singapore on Saturday, October 3. The Manufacturers Cup gets things started at 09:00 UTC, the Nations Cup follows at 12:00 UTC, and you can watch both streams right here.
There’s plenty to be excited about with this one beyond the championship, too.
It’s the first broadcast since Polyphony Digital revealed Gran Turismo 7 Spec IV last month, and Polyphony has promised more details on the update during the show. It’s also our first proper look at Sportsland Sugo, the first of two new circuits arriving in Spec IV, as its featured in the Nations Cup.
A First for Southeast Asia
Marina Bay Sands, Singapore
You have to go back to the 2020 World Tour opener in Sydney to find a Gran Turismo event anywhere close to this part of the world, so Singapore is very much new ground for the championship.
The city knows how to host a big motorsport weekend, though. This round is part of Grand Prix Season Singapore, a ten-day festival from October 2 to 11 that builds toward the Formula 1 night race.
Marina Bay Sands is the hotel and resort complex with the ship-shaped SkyPark laid across the top of its three towers, and few buildings in Singapore are more recognizable. After a season opener in a historic Milan theater and a closed-door round at Polyphony’s own studio, the Sands Theatre is a glamorous change of scenery, and the first time since May that fans get to be in the room with the drivers. Tickets are still available if you can make it.
The day also has one extra race. As we covered back in May, the Singapore Regional Gran Turismo Cup is an on-stage exhibition that opens the show at 4:00 p.m. local time. Its grid comes from a regional time trial open to players from Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The official stream schedule begins with the Manufacturers Cup, so this one appears to be only for the people in the room. For everyone else, expect some highlights during the broadcast.
Spec IV Update
Spec IV was announced during a PlayStation State of Play on September 3, and it’s a big one.
The update is large enough to arrive in two parts, one in October and one in December, and Kazunori Yamauchi described it as the opening act for the series’ 30th anniversary in 2027.
Here’s what’s confirmed so far: there are two new circuits (Sugo in October and a returning Autumn Ring in December), twelve new cars (only six have been shown), two new online modes in Shuffle Races and Online Drift Challenges, a Family Mode, and changes to how cars are bought, viewed, and collected, including a Concierge feature. Our full Spec IV rundown covers all of it.
The new information is due on Saturday. Polyphony has said this broadcast is where it will share more about the cars, circuits, modes, and features in both halves of the update. The obvious hopes are a release date for the October part and a look at the six cars still under wraps, plus something more concrete on what Family Mode and the Concierge actually do.
Polyphony has used the World Series stage well before (the full Hypercar Update reveal came during the Milan broadcast), but the Tokyo round delivered a disappointing single piece of content news. Having said that, this is a live show in front of a crowd with a major update to promote, so it would be a surprise if Polyphony left the stage empty-handed.
Sugo Circuit Makes Its Debut
Sportsland Sugo in Gran Turismo 7
The one piece of Spec IV we know we’ll see is Sportsland Sugo, which hosts both the Nations Cup qualifier and sprint race. It makes its World Series debut this weekend and arrives in GT7 with the October update. It’s also the first time Sugo has appeared in any Gran Turismo game.
The circuit is a fixture of Japanese domestic racing (Super Formula, Super GT, and Super Taikyu all visit), and it’s short but demanding. Polyphony lists the lap at 3,586 meters (2.2 miles), with 13 turns and almost 70 meters of elevation change. That includes a steep downhill back straight and a fast, sweeping uphill final corner that leads onto the pit straight.
Sportsland Sugo in Gran Turismo 7
Everyone will drive the same Dallara SF23 Super Formula car, and Sugo isn’t a track you find in many racing games. Unless a driver has put in laps elsewhere, most of the field will be learning it from scratch. It will be interesting to see how quickly they adapt (our guess is very quickly), and whether the usual pecking order survives a circuit nobody knows well.
For viewers, we’ve seen very little of Sugo in motion so far, and a one-lap qualifier followed by a 15-lap sprint means a lot of new footage, from onboard laps to replays and broadcast clips. If you’re waiting on the October update, consider Saturday’s sprint your preview.
Manufacturers Cup at 09:00 UTC
The Manufacturers Cup opens the broadcast, and it brings another complete driver changeover.
Milan was run by each team’s EMEA representative and Tokyo was run by the Asia-Oceania drivers, so in Singapore all twelve seats go to drivers from the Americas. (Yes, it’s a bit ironic the first Southeast Asian round of the Manufacturers Cup has no Asian drivers.)
Porsche arrives with a maximum 12 points from two rounds, five clear of Ferrari, with Lamborghini, Audi, and Mazda tied on five. But with the drivers changing every round, the table says less about this race than usual. Porsche’s wins came from Jose Serrano and Takuma Sasaki, and now the car goes to Angel Inostroza, who has eight wins from 62 live event starts.
Elsewhere on the grid, Toyota’s Adriano Carrazza has been in the Nations Cup field from the series’ earliest days, Subaru’s Daniel Solis (a two-time champion with the team) is its most experienced driver now that Takuma Miyazono has moved on, and Ferrari hands a seat to 20-year-old Nicolás Arriagada, back after a year away. Three drivers will double up on the day. Carrazza, Mercedes-AMG’s Lucas Bonelli, and Mazda’s Samuel Cardinal all race for their countries in the Nations Cup later.
The race is a 20-lap Gr.3 contest at Autodrome Lago Maggiore Full Course Reverse. A one-lap time attack on Racing Mediums sets grid positions 7 to 12, and the top six go into a second one-lap shootout for the front of the grid. The Grand Final requires all three tire compounds, so strategy will matter as much as raw pace.
Nations Cup at 12:00 UTC
The Nations Cup follows at 12:00 UTC with the same twelve drivers who lined up in Milan and Tokyo, and the standings have tightened nicely.
Kylian Drumont leads on nine points after winning everything he entered in Tokyo, but that’s only two clear of Jose Serrano and Pol Urra on seven, and a win is worth six. Valerio Gallo is on five, Samuel Moreno, Ryota Kokubun, and Takuma Miyazono are on four, and Kaj de Bruin has two.
At the other end of the table, Cardinal, Carrazza, Guy Barbara, and Bonelli are all still looking for their first points. Only Singapore and the World Finals remain, so they need a big result soon, and three of them have a Manufacturers Cup race to get through first.
The storylines carry over from Tokyo. Serrano, the defending champion, is still chasing his first Nations Cup win of the season after a one-second penalty dropped him to fifth. Urra, who won in Milan, could only salvage sixth. And 18-year-old Moreno has gone from leading the Milan final and finishing tenth to a podium in Tokyo.
There’s a twist on the format, too. A one-lap qualifier at Sugo sets the grid for a 15-lap sprint (hard tires only, no mandatory stop), and the sprint result sets the grid for the 24-lap Grand Final.
That final moves to a rarely used layout, Circuit de Sainte-Croix B in reverse, in the Red Bull X2019 Competition with all three compounds required. At 7,062 meters a lap, that’s about 170 km (105 miles). If you’d like to try it yourself, the current Online Time Trial uses the same track and car.
Race Start Times
Both broadcasts open about 20 minutes before the racing gets going.
Manufacturers Cup at 09:00 UTC (5:00 p.m. SGT, 2:00 a.m. PDT, 5:00 a.m. EDT, 10:00 a.m. BST, 11:00 a.m. CEST)
Nations Cup at 12:00 UTC (8:00 p.m. SGT, 5:00 a.m. PDT, 8:00 a.m. EDT, 1:00 p.m. BST, 2:00 p.m. CEST)
Stealth Model Cars
The Viewers Gift campaign returns for a third round. Watching the Manufacturers Cup stream in-game earns a Ford GT Race Car ’18 Stealth Model, and the Nations Cup stream delivers an SF23 Super Formula / Toyota ’23 Stealth Model, the first single-seater to get the Stealth treatment. Neither will be sold anywhere in the game.
Load each broadcast from the Viewers Campaign banner in the top-right corner of the GT7 World Map. You don’t have to watch live, and the window runs through Monday, October 19 at 8:59 UTC, with both cars delivered on October 20 via the Gifts tab in your Garage. The servers have buckled in both previous rounds, so there’s no need to pile in at once. Our full guide has the details.
Predict the Winners
The classic Predict the Winners campaign has been open in GT7 since September 18.
Find the WINNERS Campaign banner in the top-right corner of the World Map and pick a winner for the Manufacturers Cup and the Nations Cup. Each correct pick pays 1,000,000 credits, or 2,000,000 if you get both. Entries close when each race starts, and rewards arrive on Monday, October 5 in the Gifts tab of your Garage (they’re only claimable for a limited time, so don’t leave them sitting). The driver profiles and official campaign page have the rest.
Whatever your pick, get it in early. The campaign servers have struggled on broadcast day before, so don’t leave it to the last minute.
Join the Discussion!
Singapore is the last round before the World Finals return to Tokyo on December 5-6, so the championship picture will look quite different by Saturday night.
If you’re watching along (or heading to the venue), drop into the GTPlanet forums for discussion during both broadcasts!
See more articles on Gran Turismo 7 Spec IV and Gran Turismo World Series.