The Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup Aims to Discover the Fastest GR “Driver”
Toyota Gazoo Racing (TGR) has announced details of the Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup (TGR GT Cup) 2021, a new series in Gran Turismo SPORT for PlayStation®4＊1 (PS4®).
The TGR GT Cup is a global series in which the Toyota GR line-up, including road vehicles and dedicated racing cars, will compete in an eight-round season. In addition to the GR Supra and GR Yaris, the recently announced GR 86 is scheduled for introduction to the series in the middle of the year. Players can change the cars they use for their virtual racing for each round if they wish – something that is hard to achieve in real-life motorsports.
Partly because of the effects of COVID-19, 2020 was a year in which people paid more attention to e-Motorsports than ever before, as exemplified by the hosting of the Virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans. Many players from all over the world also took part in the GR Supra GT Cup and the GR Yaris Time Trial, hosted by TGR. After being featured in Gran Turismo SPORT, approximately 1.30 million GR Supra and 530,000 GR Yaris vehicles were purchased, indicating the great player-appeal of GR models.
TGR plans to continue its active engagement in e-Motorsports so that motorsports and sports cars will become more familiar around the world and be enjoyed by many generations to come.
Outline of TGR GT Cup 2021
| Race name | Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup 2021 |
| Event period | April – December, 2021 |
| Event location | Qualifying: online, across the world (seven rounds) Final: online final to be held in conjunction with the FIA GT Championship in December (planned) |
| Participation requirement | Owner of “Gran Turismo SPORT” for PS4® or PS5™ with software within Gran Turismo. Participants must be six years old or older＊2 |
Schedule
Dates and courses may be subject to change.
| Round | Date | Car | Course | |
| Qualifying | Rd.1 | 25 April | GR Supra ’20 | Weather Tech Raceway Laguna Seca (USA) |
| Rd.2 | 23 May | GR Yaris | Fuji International Speedway (Japan) | |
| Rd.3 | 30 May | SF19 | Suzuka Circuit（Japan） | |
| Rd.4 | 6 June | 2000GT | The Nürburgring (Germany) | |
| Rd.5 | 4 July | GR Supra RC | Autódromo José Carlos Pace (Brazil) | |
| Rd.6 | 18 July | GR Yaris | Sardinia (Italy) | |
| Rd.7 | 22 August | GR 86 | Mount Panorama (Australia) | |
| Final | Final Rd. | December | TBA | TBA |
Start Time (differs according to the five regions below)
| Region | Start Time |
| Asia | 12:00, 13:30 (UTC) / 21:00, 22:30 (JST) |
| Oceania | 09:00, 10:30 (UTC) / 19:00, 20:30 (AEST) / 18:00, 19:30 (JST) |
| Europe, Middle east, Africa | 17:00, 18:30 (UTC) / 19:00, 20:30 (CEST) / Next day 2:00, 3:30 (JST) |
| North America | 25:00, 26:30 (UTC) / 18:00, 19:30 (PDT) / 21:00, 22:30 (EDT) / Next day 10:00, 11:30 (JST) |
| Latin America | 23:00, 24:30 (UTC) / 16:00, 17:30 (PDT) / 19:00, 20:30 (EDT) / Next day 08:00, 09:30 (JST) |
＊Rd.4 will start 30 minutes before the above times. Start time is subject to change.
Outline of the TGR GT Cup Final
| Date | December（planned） | |
| Location | To be held online in conjunction with the FIA GT Championship (planned) | |
| Race overview | The race will be carried out inviting the top 24 drivers from among those achieving the highest four scores in Rounds 1 – 7 of online races, from the five regions specified by the FIA GT Championship as well as the TGR allotment (regional finalists)＊3. | |
| Driver details | Region | Number of selected drivers (planned) |
| Europe, Middle East and Africa | 9 | |
| North America | 3 | |
| South and Central America | 3 | |
| Asia | 4 | |
| Oceania | 1 | |
| TGR allotment＊3 | 4 | |
| Total | 24 | |
＊1 “PlayStation”, “PS5”, and “PS4” are registered trademarks of Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.© 2019 Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc. Developed by Polyphony Digital Inc. “Gran Turismo” logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.
＊2 Under the laws of the participating countries or regions, even if participants are in the top qualifying rounds online, they may not be able to participate in the final.*3 Drivers selected from TGR’s regional finals
Detailed information including the circuits to be used in each round will be published in due course on the TGR GT Cup section of the TGR official website, https://toyotagazooracing.com/e-motorsports/
Also, entries for each race will open 15 minutes before the start of each race at “sports mode” of the “Gran Turismo SPORT”.
ENDS
