Gran Turismo World Series end in controversy

i1uwWoraCkMYoW.jpg
The 2022 Gran Turismo World Series esports finals came to an end this week-end, and while production was above everything else in the field, the competitive part itself has been quite controversial over the whole week.

The event was run over 4 days, featuring 3 separate championships: the Toyota Gazoo Racing Cup, the Manufacturers Cup and the Nations Cup. A Pro-Am race with media and celebrities, and a Pros vs Sophy AI race were also hosted, but not livestreamed. Several pro real-life racers guests were present: Kazuki Nakajima handed out the TGRC trophy, Lewis Hamilton gave a conf-call interview (due to airport issues, he couldn't be on site) and Esteban Ocon ran the Pro-Am race.

Fikv0VSWQAAadpi.jpg


The Monaco venue saw a number of interesting cars decorating the stage and its surroundings, with Toyota bringing the Le Mans winning GR010, and Ferrari unveiling a unique car. The stage itself looked even more professional than before, with a new press conference area that brought the simracing event even closer to looking like a real racing week-end.


That is until the racing part got involved. While some of it was exciting, especially the Manufacturers final with changing weather conditions on Spa providing a great show, two points tainted the whole effort. The first was technical issues: every series saw retirements due to rig malfunctions, either due to a wheel problem, a game bug or a screen turning off mid-race. The retirement of Valerio Gallo, 2021 Nations Cup champion, looked especially bad as it left him stuck on the grid for a whole lap as the pack came back to the start line with the car still sitting there. It was only removed after nearly creating a massive crash, while everyone was expecting the race to be red flagged and restarted, as has been done in the past in similar situations.

The second point, which triggered a lot of reactions on social media and in simracing communities, was the inconsistent and generally light stewarding. Several shunts were punished with light 2 seconds penalties allowing the offender to stay in front of their victims, while push to pass moves were generally unpunished, such as the last lap, last corner attempt from Coque Lopez which allowed him to grab the Nations Cup title away from Angel Inostroza at the last minute. The stewarding decision, which came after a several minutes long deliberation, prompted a global lashout from many active and retired pro simracers, as the mood on stage was instantly killed, according to people present at the venue.


Here's Angel Inostroza's comment during the press conference held right after the race: https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx6TtMl1gQHznbVKhOF15BimFj7P7o0I9W

As for the results of the event:
  • The Toyota Gazoo Racing Cup was won by Igor Fraga, who cheekily proceeded to ask Kazuki Nakajima if Toyota would offer him a drive. Kylian Drumont took second place, while Takuma Sasaki completed the podium.
  • Manufacturers Cup saw Team Subaru (Daniel Solis / Kylian Drumont / Takuma Miyazono) snatching the win away from runner-up Toyota (Igor Fraga / Nikita Moysov / Ryota Kokubun) and Mercedes (Lucas Bonelli / Baptiste Beauvois / Syunsuke Tsuboi) after an intense battle for the lead in the latter stages of the partly wet race, with tyre choice proving to play a critical role. As 1st and 2nd were tied in points, the result of the final race was the tiebreaker.
  • Nations Cup was won by Coque Lopez in front of Angel Inostroza, who both delivered a very solid race until the controversial finish. Igor Fraga ended up taking 3rd, making him the only driver to score a podium in every series, with him standing on every step during the week. Once again, Lopez and Inostroza being tied on points, they were separated by the final race's finishing positions.
With the racing season being finished for every major series now, what would incentivize you to watch simracing esports in 2023 ?
About author
GT-Alex
Global motorsports enjoyer, long time simracer, Gran Turismo veteran, I've been driving alongside top drivers since the dawn of online pro leagues on Gran Turismo, and qualified for the only cancelled FIA GTC World Tour. I've left aside competitive driving in 2020 to dedicate myself to IGTL, a simracing organisation hosting high quality events for pro racers and customers, to create with friends the kind of events we wished we could have had. We strive to provide the best events for drivers and the best content for viewers, and want to help the simracing scene grow and shine further in the global esports scene.

Comments

This is simracing ...
How many times has it happened in events of a certain importance where REAL SIMs such as rF2 or iRacing were used? With technology there is always this risk, if those who organize these events in certain places set up the computers in an obscene way ...
 
Last edited:
This is simracing ...
How many times has it happened in events of a certain importance where REAL SIMs such as rF2 or iRacing were used? With technology there is always this risk, if those who organize these events in certain places set up the computers in an obscene way ...
At least grass dipping is more realistic in GT7 than iRacing (a "REAL" sim) ;)
 
Last edited:
The Toyota Gazoo Racing Cup was won by Igor Fraga, who cheekily proceeded to ask Kazuki Nakajima if Toyota would offer him a drive. Kylian Drumont took second place, while Takuma Sasaki completed the podium.
That sounds just like a joke to me, did he take it seriously?
 
That sounds just like a joke to me, did he take it seriously?
Well, Igor Fraga raced F3, just tested a SF Light like a week ago and is generally recognized as a pretty talented driver by those who follow him. He's also been sponsored by Gran Turismo in real life racing, and there's a pretty tight relationship between Toyota and GT.

So yeah, I'd say it was thrown out as a joke, but it's far from being an innocent one. From a marketing perspective, it would make a lot of sense for it to happen at least for a test day.
 
Gran Tourismo players playing it differently to the way real world drivers race? No Never... Gran Tourismo was always so realistic... :whistling:

I was actually expecting proper arcade racing incidents with a crashfest or 2 and so forth for the controversy...

esports only interest me when I'm involve or the world is in lockdown with no active racing real in the real world...
 
Why do I feel ashamed of myself when I see boys like this?

Don't get me wrong, they're acting their age, it's just us who are old men gaming.
 
Why do I feel ashamed of myself when I see boys like this?

Don't get me wrong, they're acting their age, it's just us who are old men gaming.
Because when we were young we didn't had the internet (or at least, in my case, not as popular use of the internet) to immortalize and make viral the stupid **** we all did.
 
I had no problem with Coque Lopez lunging hard into the tunnel.

- He had to try something, and Gran Turismo has always been more elbows out than most sim racing due to the forgiving damage model.

- Inostroza should not have been there in the first place because he took out Miyazono and hence should have pulled over and given up 2nd rather than raced for the win;

 
Last edited:
rF2 had a many hickups in their Virtual Le Mans streams with disconnects and general server issues.

In 2020 (?) Max Verstappen crashed out due to a screen freeze.
The code has been very much optimized since that problem.
But those problems where not all the fault the software.
Many problems occured due to drivers running on less reliable wifi from their homes.
Even some used their 4G as their network connection.
Or connections being lost because of 3rd part influences.
So, the servers had a really hard time picking up the data stream after those disconnects and huge pings.
 
Last edited:

Article information

Author
Alexandre Tonini
Article read time
3 min read
Views
27,608
Comments
28
Last update

What do you think about subscription models in simracing?

  • It's fine

    Votes: 72 7.6%
  • It's fine for hardware

    Votes: 17 1.8%
  • It's fine for software

    Votes: 75 7.9%
  • I don't like it

    Votes: 707 74.7%
  • I don't like it for hardware

    Votes: 82 8.7%
  • I don't like it for software

    Votes: 80 8.4%
  • Other, please comment

    Votes: 17 1.8%
Back
Top