As we’d expected, Polyphony Digital is squeezing one final Gran Turismo World Series Exhibition Season in before the start of the official championship, with a Manufacturers Cup event beginning soon.
It’s another speed-run of a series, comprising yet another short, four-race calendar, and with the races packed into just ten days as we’ve seen in other recent events. That does, however, mean it’s still two-thirds as long as the real thing…
The full schedule and race line-up is as follows:
GT World Series 2025 Exhibition Season 2 – Manufacturers Cup
- Round 1 – March 12 – Fuji Speedway/Gr.3 – 12 laps
- Round 2 – March 15 – Tokyo South Counterclockwise/Gr.3 – 15 laps
- Round 3 – March 19 – Autopolis/Gr.3 – 16 laps
- Round 4 – March 22 – Nurburgring Endurance/Gr.3 – 5/3 laps
There’s some rarely seen tracks in this set, as well as a couple of familiar ones. Once again there’s a significant narrowing in the differences between the top GT1 League and the GT2/3 Leagues, with almost exactly the same regulations across all four races.
In fact, with Gr.3 car races across the board, and the retrograde step to light damage for all races, there’s really only three differences in the higher level races. Firstly, tire degradation remains switched on in GT1 League qualifying, while there’s also two more laps for GT1 in the final round at the Nurburgring Endurance course.
This Exhibition Season is again running on the alternating Wednesday/Saturday format we’ve seen over recent events, as well as the upcoming official season. The timings are the same as we’ve become used to, with ten entry slots for GT2/GT3 racers spread across the day and three slots from early afternoon to evening for GT1. That’s also the third difference, and again the weekday slots particularly are not conducive to high GT1 participation.
As ever, while you can enter as many slots as you wish for each round, only the last race you enter counts towards your score — even if you disconnect and score zero. There’s been an increase in how many rounds count towards your points total recently, and again we’re seeing only one dropped round this time, so it’s your best three from four again.
The Gran Turismo World Series is a more formal championship than the Daily Races, featuring longer races and a dedicated points system.
Whenever you first enter the series you’ll be placed into a “League” that matches your current Driver Rating (DR) rank. Players holding a DR of A or A+ go into GT1 League, those with a DR of B will slot into GT2 League, and drivers at C and lower feed into GT3 League. Your League will not change during the season, regardless of whether your DR rank does.
In each race you’ll be awarded points that depend on your finishing position and the average Driver Rating score of the players in that lobby. With the higher Driver Rating cap it’s unclear how many points that top lobbies can earn but it’s likely to be several hundred for a win, while GT3 League wins could be worth low two-digits and even possible single digits.
Taking part in the GTWS is a good opportunity to get a bit of a credit and Driver Rating boost. The events see more DR points on offer following another change — although you could also risk losing more too — and you’ll receive bonus credits according to your overall League ranking within your chosen manufacturer, primary and secondary geographical areas, and region.
GT1 players could net up to 6m credits this time round, while GT2/3 players can score a maximum of 3m. You’ll likely need to take part in all the rounds if you want the bigger rewards, but even taking part in a couple of GT3 races should be worth a nice credit bump.
