The 54th running of the ADAC RAVENOL 24h Nürburgring kicks off today, and for a race that has had a close connection with the Gran Turismo world for decades, this year’s edition is unusually significant.

Of course, the big headline for this year’s race is Max Verstappen. The reigning four-time Formula 1 world champion is making his 24h Nürburgring debut in a Mercedes-AMG GT3 with Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing, sharing the car with Lucas Auer, Jules Gounon, and Daniel Juncadella. Verstappen’s draw has been strong enough that the race has sold out for the first time in its history, with multi-day tickets sold out long ago.

But there’s a lot more going on at the Ring this weekend than just the Verstappen show.

Kazunori Yamauchi (himself a Nurburgring 24h veteran) is on the ground, a Gran Turismo World Series champion is making his 24-hour racing debut, and two of the most recognizable YouTubers (and GTPlanet members) in the sim racing community are sharing a Porsche in the same race. Here’s everything worth paying attention to…

Kazunori Yamauchi and Polyphony Digital Are On The Ground

Polyphony Digital boss Kazunori Yamauchi posted to social media earlier this week confirming his presence at the Nürburgring for the race weekend, and a handful of other Polyphony staff are there with him.

The timing is worth noting. The first round of the 2026 Gran Turismo World Series takes place in Milan next Saturday, May 23, at the Teatro Lirico Giorgio Gaber. With Polyphony staff already in Europe for the Ring, the trip ties in nicely with the team’s European calendar.

Takuma Miyazono is Making His 24-Hour Debut

For Gran Turismo World Series fans, the #520 Toyota GR Supra entered by Toyo Tires with Ring Racing is one to keep an eye on. Behind the wheel will be Takuma Miyazono, the most decorated driver in the history of the Gran Turismo World Series.

Miyazono is the only person to have completed the GTWS “triple crown” in a single year (2020), and his Nations Cup victory in Amsterdam in 2024 moved him out on his own as the most successful GTWS driver of all time with five world titles. He has two Manufacturers Cups (2020 and 2022) and a Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup (2020) to go with his two Nations Cup titles.

Miyazono has been steadily building out a real-world racing career alongside his sim work, with backing from Toyo Tires. The #520 Supra runs in the VT2 class, and the team will share driving duties between Miyazono, Masato Kawabata, Hokuto Matsuyama, and Jin Horino. The car finished fifth in class at a recent NLS round, so they arrive at the 24h with some real form.

This is Miyazono’s first ever 24-hour race. For a driver who built his career on the virtual Nordschleife in Gran Turismo Sport and GT7, racing the real thing for 24 straight hours is a serious step up, and a major endorsement for Gran Turismo players around the world.

The Ring Racing team is also no slouch. Its broader program includes Mercedes-AMG GT3 and Toyota GR Supra GT4 entries in the NLS, and they hold a DTM Trophy championship from 2022 and an NLS SP10 title from 2024.

Black Falcon Team FANATEC: Jimmy Broadbent and Steve Alvarez Brown in a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup

The other big GT-adjacent story this weekend is the Black Falcon Team Fanatec, a new partnership between long-running endurance outfit Black Falcon and sim racing hardware brand Fanatec (and don’t forget to use our Fanatec discount code ZZ-GTPLANET5 for 5% off your next order!). The team will run a Porsche 992 GT3 Cup in Class AT (alternative fuel) in the 24h, with a driver lineup pulled straight off YouTube.

The four announced drivers are Jimmy Broadbent, Steve Alvarez Brown, Misha Charoudin, and Manuel Metzger. Of course, for most GTPlanet readers, Jimmy and Steve need no introduction. The former is one of the most-followed sim racing creators on YouTube, and a long-time Gran Turismo World Series commentator. The latter is better known to most GTPlanet readers as “Super GT” on YouTube, where his Gran Turismo content has been a fixture of the community for years.

Of course, we have a strong connection to both drivers here on GTPlanet as well. We’re proud to call both of them our friends and community members; Jimmy has authored many articles here, and Steve is a regular in our forums.

As with Miyazono-san, we’ll be watching them closely and cheering them on!

How to Watch

The 2026 ADAC RAVENOL 24h Nürburgring starts at 15:00 CEST on Saturday, May 16 (14:00 BST / 9:00 AM Eastern). The cars roll off for the formation lap at 14:40 local time. The race finishes 24 hours later at 15:00 CEST on Sunday, May 17.

Coverage will be free to stream on YouTube via the official Nürburgring channel. Also, don’t forget to head on over to GTPlanet’s official Nurburgring 24h thread to chat about all the action as it happens!

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A new set of Gran Turismo 7 Weekly Challenges goes live this Friday, May 15, when your console clock ticks past midnight. Five events, seven days to clear them, and the usual stack of bonus tickets waiting for anyone who works through the list.

For anyone new to the format, Weekly Challenges open up after you’ve finished the GT Cafe career through Menu Book 39 and the ending movie. Each week’s set is four standard World Circuits races plus one Special Event, with reward tickets handed out at one, three, and five completions. Tickets land in your Gifts and need to be redeemed before they expire. Across the full set, there’s around 1.3m credits in cash and prizes available if you clear everything with clean race bonuses.

This Week’s Highlights

The headline this week is the Mitsubishi FTO one-make Special Event, which is a slightly unusual choice of car for the spotlight. Seven laps at Watkins Glen Short (not the longer layout that usually hosts the headline events at the Glen) pays out 90,000cr for the win. It should be a fun one.

Mitsubishi turns up twice this week, with the Evolution Meeting putting Lancer Evolutions through three laps of Kyoto Driving Park’s Yamagiwa + Miyabi Reverse layout for 70,000cr. The Gr.1 Prototype Series at Grand Valley – Highway 1 closes the week out as the headline payout: ten laps, racing tires, a 950PP cap, and 160,000cr for the win.

Elsewhere, the Silvia Sisters opens the week with a short three-lap Nissan field at Tsukuba (Silvia, Sileighty, and 180SX Type X eligible) for 27,000cr. The other quick one is the Japanese 4WD Challenge 600 at Fishermans Ranch — it’s nice to see an off-road rally race in the mix.

Gran Turismo 7 Weekly Challenges – May 15 Events

• Tsukuba Circuit – The Silvia Sisters
  • Laps: 3
  • Restrictions: Nissan Silvia, Sileighty, 180SX Type X
  • Win Reward: 27,000cr
• Fishermans Ranch – Japanese 4WD Challenge 600
  • Laps: 1
  • Restrictions: Japanese 4WD road cars
  • Win Reward: 30,000cr
• Kyoto Driving Park – Yamagiwa + Miyabi Reverse – Evolution Meeting
  • Laps: 3
  • Restrictions: Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution
  • Win Reward: 70,000cr
• Watkins Glen Short Course – Special Event (Mitsubishi FTO One-Make)
  • Laps: 7
  • Restrictions: Mitsubishi FTO
  • Win Reward: 90,000cr
• Grand Valley – Highway 1 – Gr.1 Prototype Series
  • Laps: 10
  • Restrictions: ≤950PP, Racing Tires
  • Win Reward: 160,000cr

Gran Turismo 7 Weekly Challenges – May 15 Rewards

• 1 Event Complete: 100,000cr Credit Ticket
• 3 Events Complete: 200,000cr Credit Ticket
• 5 Events Complete: Six-Star Roulette Ticket

The set runs through midnight on Thursday, May 21, when the next batch of Weekly Challenges arrives.

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This week’s new Online Time Trial brings something a little different. Alongside the regular new event, Polyphony has added a special tie-in with Round 1 of the 2026 Gran Turismo World Series in Milan on May 23, and it pays double the standard credit rate.

The special event puts the Red Bull X2019 (either the 25th Anniversary version or the Competition variant) on Autódromo Nazionale Monza, with Racing Soft tires. It mirrors the Nations Cup Qualifying race that the actual World Series competitors will run at the event, and Polyphony has expanded the Bronze target time to make the credit rewards more attainable.

It’s also a rare chance to put yourself directly up against the game’s quickest players. A lot of them are already on the board treating this as prep for Milan, so if you’ve ever wanted a clean comparison to the people who will be racing live next weekend, this is it.

New Regular Event: Super GT at Gilles-Villeneuve

The week’s new standard Online Time Trial heads to Canada, but the cars come straight out of Japan.

The event puts a trio of Super GT entries (the Nissan GT-R NISMO GT500 ’16, Honda NSX CONCEPT-GT ’16, and Lexus RC F GT500 ’16) on the high-speed sweeps of Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, running on Racing Soft tires.

The Super GT theme is unmissable, even if these cars have never actually raced in Montreal. All three are eligible, but an early look at the leaderboard suggests it’s going to come down to the GT-R and the NSX. The Lexus is on the menu if you want to be different, but the top of the chart is already telling a familiar story.

GT7 Lap Time Challenge May 14 (World Series Special)

• Track: Autódromo Nazionale Monza
• Car: Gran Turismo Red Bull X2019 25th Anniversary, Gran Turismo Red Bull X2019 Competition
• Power/Weight/PP Limit: BOP (H)
• Tires: Racing Soft
• Settings: Fixed

GT7 Lap Time Challenge May 14

• Track: Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve
• Cars: Nissan GT-R NISMO GT500 ’16, Honda NSX CONCEPT-GT ’16, Lexus RC F GT500 ’16
• Power/Weight/PP Limit: BOP (L)
• Tires: Racing Soft
• Settings: Fixed

GT7 Lap Time Challenge May 7

• Track: Nürburgring 24h
• Car: Porsche 911 Carrera RS (901) ’73
• Power/Weight/PP Limit: BOP (H)
• Tires: Sports Medium
• Settings: Fixed

Accessing Online Time Trials

To access the Online Time Trials, you’ll need to unlock Sport Mode by completing Menu Book 9 (“Championship: Tokyo Highway Parade”) in the GT Cafe. PlayStation Plus is not required. Once an event closes, gold goes to players within 3% of the fastest time (2m credits), silver within 5% (1m credits), and bronze within 10% (250,000cr). The World Series special event pays double the standard credit rate.

Events update every Thursday, with each challenge running for two weeks. The next new Time Trial arrives on May 21.

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After the longest fallow spell in the series’ history, Forza Horizon is back with a new title that heads to a destination for which players have been clamoring since… well, the first game: Japan.

It’s tough to believe that Forza Horizon 5 is getting up on five years old at this point, especially given three solid years of support, and even the most recent entry in Forza as a whole — Forza Motorsport (2023) — is pretty close to three.

Forza Horizon 6 then lands just in time to reinvigorate interest in the Forza franchise, after a couple of bad years, and with a fan-service venue to boot. Playground Games has been making a lot of the right noises too, and even before the PlayStation 5 release the predecessor game had racked up 50m players.

With FH6 promising to be, once again, bigger and better, it’s just about guaranteed to be a hit. We’ve been tackling Horizon Japan to see if that’s the case, courtesy of a review code of the Premium Edition provided by Xbox.

Forza Horizon 6 arrives on Tuesday, May 19, on Xbox Series and PC, with Premium Edition players getting early access on Friday, May 15. A PlayStation 5 version will be available later in 2026.

Content and Value For Money

Once again, we have a Forza Horizon title launching with more cars than its predecessor did, though fewer than it ended up with, as something in the region of 550 cars are included on the day one roster. That number will doubtless expand over time, with new cars available each month on the Playlist (which is not yet available).

As with the previous games, the majority are available through the Autoshow at all times, with a variety of vehicles on offer through game progress or through discovery on the map; Barn Finds return, alongside a new discoverable type called Treasure Cars, and there’s discounted “Aftermarket” cars you can find on the streets too.

You’ll recognize a lot of the car list from previous titles, but there’s no shortage of new in there either. That obviously starts with the cover car, the prototype version of the GR GT that Toyota has been teasing for years and quite a coup considering the brand’s association with a certain other racing game series…

Indeed a lot of the new cars are from Japan and many of them aren’t quite so new in real terms either. FH5 perhaps suffered a bit from recreating the landscape of Mexico with only the smallest contribution to its car culture, but FH6 doesn’t make that same mistake. The addition of a kei-car category — Eclectic Domestics — ensures that one of the most endearing parts of Japan’s unique parc is part of the mix.

Each car of course has hundreds of tuning part options (not including wheels, which number well into the hundreds themselves) with engine swaps, drivetrain swaps, bodykits and aero accoutrements, new tire grades and of course the extensive livery editor.

Speaking of the landscape, there’s no getting away from the fact that Japan — or at least this interpretation of a part of it — is stunning. Despite being appreciably larger than 5’s Mexico, there’s not the same sense of emptiness that the previous title could suffer from at times.

Even though we’re far from exploring the whole thing, there’s no part that doesn’t have something to do, see, collect, or photograph. That does mean that it’ll quickly become filled with brightly coloured icons, but that’s the Horizon way after all.

You’re still set the task of discovering all the roads and regions, but it’s made a little more obvious in FH6. There’s a “fog of war” effect applied both to the global map and your radar as you drive that clearly demarcates the explored and undiscovered areas, and while the game retains the grey/white/orange roadway system on the map we think it’s clearer this time round.

The game also still allows you to explore roads and map areas through the races and events themselves — other than in the opening “Prologue” spectacle — which is a nice timesaver. You can also put the new Autodrive feature into that bucket.

Pick a spot on the map, select it as your destination, and fire up the function through the ANNA menu. The game will drive you there in real time, and you can even select a cinematic camera to enjoy the trip as a spectacle. You can of course just Fast Travel, now available for free to any discovered road or location without having to smash any boards.

One new map feature is the Region display. This allows you to look at each of the nine regions (ten if you include Legends Island) individually and see what you’ve collected, found, driven, and explored within that area, simplifying the process of competing your goals.

A little step back from the previous title comes by way of the Horizon Festival site itself. In FH5 there were multiple locations to visit in order to buy (or sell) cars, which you’d unlock through the Expeditions. This isn’t replicated in FH6, with only one site initially available. Spoiler alert, there’s a second on Legends Island.

There is so much to do too, and it does become pretty overwhelming as it arrives at you thick and fast and you find yourself doing what amounts to sidequests.

As well as all of the race and stunt types from the previous two titles coming back there’s new Story missions (now with a skip option for repeat attempts, yay) and a new event type with multiple small circuits dotted around the map for Time Attack.

These and the Horizon Rush gateway events include a split-time feature and, for races against other players, a gap-to-leader timing by default. We do wish this was available against the AI, as it still seems like a feature a racing game should have within any race… Update: A tip from GTPlanet member BGreenFace sent us scurrying to the options menu, as it turns out split times can be toggled on game-wide.

The usual bonus boards return, with some high-value ones sitting in ludicrous places like atop a space rocket assembly building, and each region now has its own cutesy food and drink-based mascots to smash.

Everything feeds into one of three progression pathways, the third of which is in the Online Features section below, as you move from a newbie to the Festival and tourist in the nation up to the top levels.

Races and Stunts level up your Horizon Festival rank, offering access to the (still woefully scripted) Showcase events and the aforementioned Rush events to receive new wristbands to race faster cars.

Discovering things, collecting cars, tuning, and Stories all rank you up in Discover Japan, for which you get stamps in your collector book. This unlocks new player houses for purchase, each with boosts to your gameplay, including the sprawling Estate.

You can customize every garage in your player houses, with props and up to three cars (once you’ve picked up the mountain lodge), to give it just about any look you like.

That all pales next to The Estate, which is basically a 200-acre (nearly a full square kilometer) of land onto which you can place anything you like. It’s essentially EventLab Island but with a purpose and lore and we can see a lot of players spending a lot of time here.

Building off that, EventLab itself now allows you to create any kind of course or challenge anywhere on the map, no longer bound to “start points”. You can also create collaboratively, in both EventLab and your Estate, cutting down time if there’s several of you with plans. Or increasing it, as typical group projects go.

We’re quite sure we’ve missed something, because Forza Horizon 6 is a lot. Suffice to say if it’s four and a half years to the next game in the series, you probably won’t get bored even if you can rattle through the whole wristband thing in a day. Unless you get distracted by sidequests…

Online Features

Excluding the above regarding the “CoLab” feature, we can largely reiterate what we said in our Forza Horizon 5 review all those years ago. So long as you’re subscribed to one of the multiplayer Xbox pass tiers, there is always something going on that you can take part in — though there have been a few little changes.

Horizon Open, itself a rename from FH4, is now called Horizon Play, and folds almost all of the multiplayer action into one place. You can select any event type directly from this menu — including The Eliminator (good news: almost all trees in Japan are now destructible) and Hide & Seek — and jump into a race.

One particularly interesting new mode is Spec Racing, which places every player into the same car for a series of three races. That removes any consideration of killer tunes from your racing and truly generates bragging rights. However we’ve not yet seen Horizon Tour — with players driving point-to-point between races — or, curiously, Playground Games.

There’s also a new Series Champions leaderboard feature. Your successes are logged here, showing off who’s the top driver in any given Series, with the leaderboards resetting every four weeks (or every Series).

Convoys return, allowing you to party up with other players and participate in any of the Play events with your convoy. A rejig of the menus also allows you to see who from your friends list is online directly from the Online tab without delving any further.

Alongside that there’s Horizon Stunt Party, which looks to be a new name for Horizon Arcade. This pops up at the top of every hour, at certain spots of the map, and brings you into a collaborative play mode where you all try to rack up certain skill types. We’ve only seen the Chaos (random stuff) and Speed (speed traps, speed zones, speed skills) events, but we’re going to assume the other types from FH5 — Air, Drift, and Wreckage — will also be back.

Finally there’s the Car Meets, which allow you to gather with other players, park up, show off your cars, and party up if you so wish.

All of your online shenanigans feed into the third Horizon Play progression path, awarding Badges and ranking points towards your Horizon Festival progress too.

While there was a multiplayer test session that we took part in with no issue, the only players online were media, influencers, and developers. That said we’ve never had a particular issue with Forza Horizon’s servers, so a Solar Crown-type debacle is the very last thing we’d expect.

Driving Physics and Handling

It’s always incredibly difficult to judge an FH title in entirely objective terms when it comes to this, as it’s somewhere between a serious arcade title and a light-hearted simulation.

Ultimately the purpose of FH6 is to have a great deal of fun, and a lot of the time that means doing things that would destroy your car and cause terminal harm to yourself and bystanders. Key features include driving through endless fences and trees, and leaping a car a third of a mile at over 200mph from several hundred feet up.

Full simulation physics would naturally make that a bad experience. FH6 also retains the damage model from previous titles, which is to say visual-only and with no amount of absolute carnage causing even the slightest perturbation in vehicle handling. You’d have thought smashing your rear wing off would affect rear downforce, but…

Still, the depth of settings available puts some more serious simulators to shame, essentially being the same as Forza Motorsport’s options and — whatever your opinion on that game’s driving manners — giving FH6 quite some depth. The settings changes have quite authentic effects on how your car handles, as do the different surfaces.

There is of course only a relatively low limit to how your car copes with the different surfaces and, despite the various tire options, you can drive pretty much anything pretty much anywhere depending on grade. It is hugely obvious when you’re driving up a snow bank on snow tires than on drag tires, but you can, to a point, do it nonetheless.

In essence the cars do all drive in a realistic fashion to within a couple of significant figures, and the various settings tweaks do exactly what you’d expect but it’s dialled back with accessibility aforethought.

That also applies to your control method. It doesn’t look like Playground Games has made major tweaks to how the game handles on your steering wheel, although with a bit of fine-tuning this might improve and you can certainly enjoy your time if that’s what you want to go with. The default controller remains more than good enough, and while we think that there’s a little more input damping on the steering action having played back-to-back with FH5 it’s not significant.

Graphics

FH6 remains just as pretty as ever, with the vibrancy of the environment showing off the engine at its best and perhaps just about, on Xbox Series X, at its limits.

We’ll dispense with the Quality mode right away. This is capped at 30fps and is like driving in soup; even if the graphics are a “higher fidelity”, the experience is not particularly pleasant. We’d much rather the 60fps Performance mode, though it does get a little rough around the edges — quite literally — at times.

If you keep an eye on the very furthest reaches of your screen you can see effects like shadows and reflections popping in and out from time to time (usually at lower speeds), but we reckon there’s quite an improvement in draw distances and LOD transitions on things like foliage at pace. It was far more obvious in FH5, where you do now have to be going pretty quickly over rough terrain to see it here.

There’s a step up in several effects too, with some lovely ground fog clinging to trees and sea frets (well… lake frets) over what we think is the game’s equivalent of Lake Ashi. Tire smoke, dust from dirt roads, and snow effects also seem improved, and the deeper snow seems to borrow the terrain deformation from FH5’s Rally Adventure DLC.

Japan itself is irredeemably pretty here, and Tokyo really does stand out as an environment. While it perhaps doesn’t have the traffic density of the real thing, by and large it’s pretty spectacular. Lighting improvements, particularly at night, lend even more atmosphere.

If you’re playing on ultimate settings on PC (if you’ve got one powerful enough!) you can probably round that half a star up. It’ll be extremely interesting to see how the PS5 Pro handles the game too, when it arrives.

We’ll also make note here of the UI changes. Some of the menus still baffle, but the reorganisation is an improvement and the new look and new typeface is a breath of fresh air.

Sound Design

A complete overhaul of the sound engine has stepped FH6 up above its predecessor, helped along by a rejig to the musical offerings too.

While we’ve never had a fundamental problem with any Forza Horizon title’s audio in general terms, there were some weak spots here and there which PG has addressed with the new Triton Acoustics system developed by Microsoft.

You can consider this a three-dimensional sound recreation system — essentially ray-tracing for noises — that better emulates how sound reflects off nearby surfaces. Combined with new recordings of a variety of vehicles, it’s a far better experience and not just in the sense of hearing what your own car’s various noisy parts are doing but to pick up where the cars around you are.

New sliders in the audio menu also allow you to adjust more effects than before, including low-frequency effects that give the game a beefier sound all round.

In general, music in games is a very particular taste, and while Horizon has always offered multiple radio stations to appeal to as broad an audience as possible our favorite station in both FH4 and FH5 was “off”. That’s not been the case with FH6 so far, which seems to have hit the mark a bit better — though we’re still missing an option to set a default station, often needing to cycle through when the game forces a particular channel on for certain circumstances.

All of the comedy horns are back too, and with friends, but we’d very much like it if the game would allow a “standard” option that played the car’s own original warning notes.

Our Verdict

Glancing back at what we said about Forza Horizon 5, our conclusion was that it was basically FH4 with all the features from all the expansions folded into the main game and set in a more interesting landscape, bar the change to the progression systems.

For the most part, that seems to be the case again here, and that doesn’t really come as a surprise since FH5 racked up 50 million players on Xbox, PC, and finally PlayStation. The recipe works, and PG has addressed quite a few of our minor gripes with FH5 while improving the graphics and audio and catering to the fans by finally setting it in Japan.

It’s still demonstrably a Horizon title, with everything happening relentlessly and messages all over the screen all the time rewarding you from virtually anything you do. However there’s plenty of improvements to the gameplay and UI, and the new garage customization and Estate features will keep players occupied for quite some time.

Of course there’s still more content to come by way of expansions and the expanding car roster, and we don’t doubt that there’s plenty in the pipeline to keep players busy for another four years — if FH7 takes that long…

Forza Horizon 6

The world of Horizon keeps on evolving, with another excellent entry that incrementally improves across the board.

Learn more about how our rating system works.

Content and Value For Money

Launches with more of everything than any title before it, and new ways to make what you have your own.

Online Features

Reworked online modes provide better integration with the core game, CoLab has almost endless potential.

Driving Physics and Handling

Remains relatively realistic if generous at extremes by necessity.

Graphics

Visually impressive, with new and improved effects that perhaps test what the console can do. Avoid Quality mode on Xbox Series X.

Sound Design

A marked step up from its predecessor, and even the radio playlists seem to nail the brief this time round.

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A new week brings a new set of Gran Turismo 7 Daily Races, with three fresh events now live and running through next Monday.

Gr.3 around Laguna should pull a healthy entry list, but it’s a tight track for racing. The opening sequence into Turn 1 is a classic dive-bomb invitation, and the Corkscrew rewards patience over ambition. Expect to see both abused.

Race A keeps things considerably smaller: four laps of the Tokyo Expressway Central Clockwise in the Daihatsu Copen ’02 on Comfort Mediums. With a kei convertible on Tokyo’s long straights, this one is going to be slow. It’ll be a race of momentum and bump drafts more than anything else.

Race B moves to Big Willow in Gr.4 for seven laps on Racing Hards. Willow Springs’ International Raceway is fast, flowing, and famously unforgiving. Understeer wide and there’s nothing to hit, but there’s also nothing to slow you down before you’re a long way off the racing line. Overtaking is hard at the best of times here, and a misjudged move can get ugly fast.

GT7 Daily Races (May 11): Race A

• Track: Tokyo Expressway – Central Clockwise (4 laps)
• Car: Daihatsu Copen ’02 — Event-Specified
• Power/Weight/PP Limit: BOP (M)
• Tires: Comfort Medium
• Settings: Specified
• Start Type: Rolling Start
• Mandatory Pit Stop: –
• Fuel Multiplier: 1x
• Tire Multiplier: 1x

GT7 Daily Races (May 11): Race B

• Track: Willow Springs International Raceway – Big Willow (7 laps)
• Car: Gr.4 — Garage/Specified Car
• Power/Weight/PP Limit: BOP (M)
• Tires: Racing Hard
• Settings: Partially Allowed — Brake Balance
• Start Type: Rolling Start
• Mandatory Pit Stop: –
• Fuel Multiplier: 1x
• Tire Multiplier: 1x

GT7 Daily Races (May 11): Race C

• Track: WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca (14 laps)
• Car: Gr.3 — Garage/Specified Car
• Power/Weight/PP Limit: BOP (L)
• Tires: Racing Medium
• Settings: Partially Allowed — Brake Balance
• Start Type: Rolling Start
• Mandatory Pit Stop: 1
• Fuel Multiplier: 3x
• Tire Multiplier: 6x

About GT7 Daily Races

Daily Races are the main ranked multiplayer events in Gran Turismo 7. Your DR and SR are determined by your performances, updating at the end of each race, and these are used to set your ranking for the game’s flagship esports series each season.

In order to access the Daily Races, you’ll need to unlock Sport Mode, by completing Menu Book 9 (“Championship: Tokyo Highway Parade”) in the GT Cafe single player hub. A PlayStation Plus subscription is required to take part.

With GT7’s Daily Races updating every Monday across the game’s life to date, the next new set should arrive on Monday, May 18.

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Polyphony Digital has launched the official event page for Round 1 of the 2026 Gran Turismo World Series in Milan, with the usual broadcast schedule and format details. Tucked into the announcement is a Viewers Gift campaign that has raised a few eyebrows, because the rewards on offer are something GT7 hasn’t really seen much of before.

Players who tune in to the live broadcast through GT7’s in-game stream will receive two race cars finished in deep black, listed by Polyphony as “Stealth Models” and explicitly not available for purchase elsewhere in the game.

The New Cars

The two Stealth Models tied to the Milan broadcast are split across the two championship streams. Watching the Manufacturers Cup live in-game gets you a Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) ’22 Stealth Model, while the Nations Cup stream delivers a Toyota GT-One (TS020) ’99 Stealth Model.

To collect them, viewers need to find the Viewers Campaign banner in the top-right corner of the GT7 World Map, click into the Manufacturers Cup or Nations Cup broadcast link, and watch the live stream. The Manufacturers Cup goes live on Saturday, May 23 at 15:00 UTC, with the Nations Cup following at 17:30 UTC.

The window to qualify runs from the start of each broadcast through Monday, June 8. Rewards will be distributed in-game following the next GT7 update. Neither car will be available for purchase in the in-game dealerships. If you miss the broadcast window, that’s it.

A Brief History of Stealth Models

The “Stealth Model” badge traces its history all the way back to Gran Turismo 5. It’s limited to cars wearing exclusive Polyphony-designed livery (black with subtle GT-themed branding) and, in some cases, light performance tweaks over the standard in-game version.

When GT5 launched in 2010, Stealth Models were strictly off-limits to most players. They were spread across pre-order incentives and the Signature Edition, with different cars tied to different retailers and regions. The Nissan GT-R GT500 Stealth went to Signature Edition and pre-order buyers, and was later given away free via a PSN code tied to the 2011 GT Academy finale.

Although there was some controversy as the cars were used in various free promotions later, the cars were rare enough that Autoart eventually produced 1/18-scale physical versions of three of them, starting with the Mazda 787B in early 2012.

In GT6, GT5-era Stealth Models were carried over and made available to all players, with an Audi R10 TDI Stealth Model added to the lineup, but none returned for GT Sport.

GT7 brought the concept back in the 3-car pre-order bonus pack, which included a Mazda RX-Vision GT3 Concept Stealth Model alongside the Toyota Supra GT500 ’97 (Castrol Tom’s) and the Porsche 917 Living Legend. That has been the only Stealth Model in GT7 until now, and given that pre-orders closed four years ago, the badge has effectively been dormant.

That’s what makes the Milan campaign interesting. Polyphony has gone past simply rewarding viewers with credits or a livery sticker pack, and dusted off a designation that historically signaled exclusivity (and, in GT5’s case, real-world scarcity).

The Porsche 911 GT3 R and the Toyota GT-One are both significant picks and are available only through a one-weekend campaign window. That’s a much more aggressive reward structure than recent Viewers Gift campaigns have offered.

Whether this signals a broader return of the Stealth Model concept or if it’s just a one-off for the Milan round isn’t clear yet. With two more World Series rounds to follow this season (the the Singapore stop on October 3rd and the World Finals in Tokyo on December 5-6), there’s plenty of room for Polyphony to reuse the format if it lands well.

For now, set a reminder for Saturday, May 23…

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This week’s new Online Time Trial is German through and through. Gran Turismo 7 pairs one of Porsche’s most beloved classics, the 911 Carrera RS (901) ’73, with the full 24h layout of the Nürburgring on Sports Medium tires.

The Carrera RS was was added to GT7 back in update 1.29 and it’s a slow but personality-rich choice, especially when paired with this tire compound. The result has been one of the more popular Time Trial combos in recent memory, judging by the conversation in our forums.

This is, of course, the full 25-kilometer Nürburgring 24h layout. Most players are looking at lap times north of 10 minutes, so a clean run is a real commitment.

Last week’s Online Time Trial featuring Gr.3 cars on Trial Mountain Circuit with Racing Hard tires has one week left to run before it closes on May 14.

GT7 Lap Time Challenge May 7

• Track: Nürburgring 24h
• Car: Porsche 911 Carrera RS (901) ’73
• Power/Weight/PP Limit: BOP (H)
• Tires: Sports Medium
• Settings: Fixed

GT7 Lap Time Challenge April 30

• Track: Trial Mountain Circuit
• Car: Gr.3
• Power/Weight/PP Limit: BOP (M)
• Tires: Racing Hard
• Settings: Fixed

Accessing Online Time Trials

To access the Online Time Trials, you’ll need to unlock Sport Mode by completing Menu Book 9 (“Championship: Tokyo Highway Parade”) in the GT Cafe. PlayStation Plus is not required. Once an event closes, gold goes to players within 3% of the fastest time (2m credits), silver within 5% (1m credits), and bronze within 10% (250,000cr).

Events update every Thursday, with each challenge running for two weeks. The next new Time Trial arrives on May 14.

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A new set of Gran Turismo 7 Weekly Challenges goes live this Friday, May 8, when your console clock ticks past midnight. Five events, seven days to clear them, and the usual stack of bonus tickets waiting for anyone who works through the list.

If you’re new to the format, Weekly Challenges are a bonus mode that opens up after you’ve finished the GT Cafe career through Menu Book 39 and the ending movie. Each week’s set is four standard World Circuits races plus one Special Event, with reward tickets handed out at one, three, and five completions. The tickets land in your Gifts and need to be redeemed before they expire. Across the full set, there’s around 1.3m credits in cash and prizes available if you clear everything with clean race bonuses.

This Week’s Highlights

The headline this week is the Yangwang U9 one-make Special Event, which sends the BYD-built electric hyper-car around the full Circuit de la Sarthe at Le Mans for two laps. It’s the U9’s first appearance in a Weekly Challenge since the car arrived in April’s 1.69 update, and the 80,000cr win reward is the second-highest of the week.

Elsewhere, the World Touring Car 900 closes things out at Interlagos with a 12-lap PP-capped race for the headline 170,000cr payout. The American Clubman Cup 700 takes road cars to Watkins Glen, and the Japanese FR Challenge 450 gets a quick three-lapper at Autodrome Lago Maggiore West. The Sunday Cup Classic at Laguna Seca is the low point of the week with only 15,000cr for the win, but at two laps it’s also the shortest event on the schedule.

Gran Turismo 7 Weekly Challenges – May Week 2 Events

• Laguna Seca Raceway – Sunday Cup Classic
  • Laps: 2
  • Restrictions: Road cars
  • Win Reward: 15,000cr
• Autodrome Lago Maggiore – West – Japanese FR Challenge 450
  • Laps: 3
  • Restrictions: Japanese FR road cars
  • Win Reward: 40,000cr
• Watkins Glen Long Course – American Clubman Cup 700
  • Laps: 5
  • Restrictions: U.S. road cars
  • Win Reward: 70,000cr
• 24 Heures du Mans race track – Special Event (Yangwang U9 One-Make)
  • Laps: 2
  • Restrictions: Yangwang U9 ’24
  • Win Reward: 80,000cr
• Autodromo de Interlagos – World Touring Car 900
  • Laps: 12
  • Restrictions: ≤900PP
  • Win Reward: 170,000cr

Gran Turismo 7 Weekly Challenges – May Week 2 Rewards

• 1 Event Complete: 100,000cr Credit Ticket
• 3 Events Complete: 200,000cr Credit Ticket
• 5 Events Complete: 500,000cr Credit Ticket

The set runs through midnight on Thursday, May 14, when the next batch of Weekly Challenges arrives.

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GTPlanet readers can now save 5% on Fanatec gear at Fanatec.com by entering the code ZZ-GTPLANET5 at checkout. The discount applies to any product that isn’t already on sale, and it doesn’t expire.

It’s also a permanent fixture rather than a flash promotion, so it’ll be there next time you’re shopping too.

How Much You Actually Save

On Fanatec’s flagship Gran Turismo DD Extreme, the code knocks $61 off a wheel base that already dropped $280 earlier this year. On the GT DD Pro 5 Nm bundle (a sensible starting point for most PlayStation players), it’s another $40 off.

To be clear, the code doesn’t stack on existing sale prices. If a product is already showing a strikethrough discount on Fanatec.com, ZZ-GTPLANET5 won’t apply on top. But Fanatec’s February price reductions were rolled out as new standard pricing rather than a temporary sale, so the major Gran Turismo products should be fair game. Worth double-checking at the cart before you commit.

Here’s how the math works out for the most popular Gran Turismo licensed products in the US store, assuming current standard pricing with affiliate links:

Gran Turismo DD Extreme

• Current price: $1,219.99
• Discount price: $1,158.99
• You save: $61.00

ClubSport Racing Wheel F1 (18 Nm)

• Current price: $1,219.99
• Discount price: $1,158.99
• You save: $61.00

ClubSport Racing Wheel F1 + CSL Elite V2 Bundle

• Current price: $1,549.99
• Discount price: $1,472.49
• You save: $77.50

Gran Turismo DD Pro (8 Nm bundle)

• Current price: $919.99
• Discount price: $873.99
• You save: $46.00

Gran Turismo DD Pro (5 Nm bundle)

• Current price: $799.99
• Discount price: $759.99
• You save: $40.00

ClubSport GT Cockpit Gran Turismo Bundle (18 Nm)

• Current price: $2,804.99
• Discount price: $2,664.74
• You save: $140.25

CSL Elite Steering Wheel Porsche Vision GT

• Current price: $349.99
• Discount price: $332.49
• You save:$17.49

European pricing follows the same 5% discount on each region’s local price, so €1,099.95 on the GT DD Extreme drops to €1,044.95.

Which Bundle to Actually Buy

If you’re new to Direct Drive on PlayStation, the Gran Turismo DD Pro 5 Nm bundle at $759.99 with the code is the obvious entry point.

Of course, it’s worth keeping in mind that Fanatec’s recent firmware update added FullForce support to the GT DD Pro and bumped the higher-end ClubSport DD and DD+ bases up to 15 Nm and 18 Nm respectively, all for free.

For everyone else, the GT DD Extreme bundle at $1,158.99 with the code remains the most complete package Fanatec sells with PlayStation compatibility out of the box. The Porsche Vision GT wheel at $332.49 is also a tempting standalone upgrade if you already own a QR2-equipped base. Our full review covers what makes it worth the money.

The Fine Print

Apply the code at checkout on Fanatec.com. It works across regional storefronts (US, EU, AU, Japan), but won’t combine with other promotions and won’t apply to items already on sale. If you try to use the code with an on-sale item in your cart, the code won’t work, so you’ll need to use it in a separate order.

Fanatec’s pricing situation has been volatile, especially in North America over the past year, so check the affiliate links for current numbers before you order.

Have questions about which Fanatec setup is right for you, or want to share what you ended up buying? Head over to GTPlanet’s Sim Racing Hardware forums for more discussion!

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A new week brings a new set of Gran Turismo 7 Daily Races, with three fresh events now live and running through next Monday. Noteworthy this week is Race A’s choice of car: the Wicked Fabrication GT 51, an in-game name that takes a moment to unpack.

The car is the 2016 GT Awards winner, Bruce Levens’ 1951 Ford Coupe, built by Chad Wick of Wicked Fabrication. It debuted at SEMA in Las Vegas with hand-formed body panels, a gold powder-coated 1956 Lincoln V8 by engine builder Ron Shaver, and one-off Halibrand-cast wheels copied from a 1930s Novi Indycar. After nearly a decade in the queue, it finally arrived in GT7, and now it’s a one-make field of twelve at Trial Mountain for four laps on Sports Hards.

Race B moves to Gr.3 around the Yamagiwa layout at Kyoto Driving Park for five laps, with sixteen cars on the grid. Yamagiwa is curb-heavy, and Gr.3 cars don’t always like using them, so be careful out there.

Race C is the long one: eleven laps of Spa-Francorchamps in Gr.1, with 2x fuel, 5x tire wear, and sixteen cars. GT7’s Gr.1 is a bit all over the map and the cars can be difficult to drive, but you should find Spa’s mix of long straights and high-speed sweepers a good match.

GT7 Daily Races (May 4): Race A

• Track: Trial Mountain Circuit (4 laps)
• Car: Wicked Fabrication GT 51 — Event-Specified
• Power/Weight/PP Limit: BOP (M)
• Tires: Sports Hard
• Settings: Specified
• Start Type: Rolling Start
• Mandatory Pit Stop: –
• Fuel Multiplier: 1x
• Tire Multiplier: 1x

GT7 Daily Races (May 4): Race B

• Track: Kyoto Driving Park – Yamagiwa (5 laps)
• Car: Gr.3 — Garage/Specified Car
• Power/Weight/PP Limit: BOP (M)
• Tires: Racing Medium, Intermediate, Wet
• Settings: Partially Allowed — Brake Balance
• Start Type: Rolling Start
• Mandatory Pit Stop: –
• Fuel Multiplier: 1x
• Tire Multiplier: 1x

GT7 Daily Races (May 4): Race C

• Track: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps (11 laps)
• Car: Gr.1 — Garage/Specified Car
• Power/Weight/PP Limit: BOP (H)
• Tires: Racing Medium, Intermediate, Wet
• Settings: Partially Allowed — Brake Balance
• Start Type: Rolling Start
• Mandatory Pit Stop: –
• Fuel Multiplier: 2x
• Tire Multiplier: 5x

About GT7 Daily Races

Daily Races are the main ranked multiplayer events in Gran Turismo 7. Your DR and SR are determined by your performances, updating at the end of each race, and these are used to set your ranking for the game’s flagship esports series each season.

In order to access the Daily Races, you’ll need to unlock Sport Mode, by completing Menu Book 9 (“Championship: Tokyo Highway Parade”) in the GT Cafe single player hub. A PlayStation Plus subscription is required to take part.

With GT7’s Daily Races updating every Monday across the game’s life to date, the next new set should arrive on Monday, May 11.

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