Following an exciting opening round in Montréal last month, the premier competition within Gran Turismo 7 visited the Czech capital Prague for its second round.
The Nations Cup competition this season is a solo affair, and it was the champion from three years ago Valerio Gallo who won this latest instalment – avoiding collisions and masterminding the strategy calls to hold off his competitions right at the end.
Sprint race
Ahead of the main race, the 12 competitors visited the most recent Gran Turismo 7 track addition – the remake of Swiss mountain venue Eiger Nordwand.
Each was in an identical Honda RA272 single-seater, a car which competed in Formula 1 during the 1965 season.
The championship leader heading into this round, Japan’s Takuma Miyazono, started up front ahead of Italy’s Gallo and the USA’s Calen Roach.
In the seven-lap affair, the mid-field scrapping was intense. Up front, Japan’s Takuma Sasaki nipped by Roach for a podium, while Gallo and Miyazono battled the entire race – the latter just holding on.
Main race
With the result of the sprint race setting the grid for the main race, Miyazono was once again on pole ahead of Gallo.
The cars this time, the now-traditional Red Bull X2019 Competition. The fictional Dragon Trail – Seaside, the venue. It would host a 32-lap race for World Series Nations Cup points. Each competitor had to visit the pitlane to swap onto two, or more (maximum of three), different tyre compounds.
Most competitors, apart from the reigning champion Coque López who used softs, were on the medium-compound to begin with.
Gallo made his move early on, Miyazono relinquishing the lead at the end of the first lap. However, the Italian would run over a kerb awkwardly the next lap, letting the Japanese driver back through.
It was the Dutch driver Kaj de Bruin making the big moves early on, passing Sasaki and Gallo for second and then grabbing the lead. Others were less fortunate, Guy Barbara wiping himself out on the nose of López and Robert Heck caught in an imbroglio that resulted in a spin.
The aforementioned alternative tyre strategy for the Spaniard meant he had the lead by the eighth lap – but would have to use harder, slower, tyres later on. The leader soon visited the pitlane, and the remaining drivers bunched up, with the top eight covered by just over one second after nine completed laps.
Chilean Angel Inostroza was the first to blink, pitting at the end of the 11th lap for softs. One lap later, erstwhile leader De Bruin and Brazilian Adriano Carrazza also opted to stay away from the stoush by pitting.
By the end of lap 14, Sasaki elected to stay out, while by now, the vast majority of the field had visited the pits at least once. In fact, the Japanese driver would not pit until the end of the 20th tour, attempting a one-stop strategy.
On track, Inostroza tried to make a pass on López for second place, only to be shown the door, the grass, the wall and the gravel trap resulting in a costly spin.
As ever with a Gran Turismo race with equal cars and tyre selection in play, it would only be until the closing stages that the strategies played out.
A pivotal move with eight laps remaining, Gallo moved past both Japanese drivers who were battling to jump from fourth to second – a run coming out of the third corner propelled the Italian forward.
However, trying to pass De Bruin for the lead, Gallo was eased wide, with Miyazono now back into contention. The 2021 Nations Cup champion, however, kept his cool and repeated his move from the prior lap again to take the lead.
Not for long (again) and the Dutch driver fought back, bringing Jose Serrano with him. The battling was frenetic, with four cars abreast at times.
You got the sense that something had to give, and in this instance, it was Serrano, off into the buried on the exit of the second corner from the lead as Kylian Drumont recovered from a lowly starting position.
The Spanish driver’s attempts to rejoin the asphalt then saw De Bruin, Roach and Sasaki clash.
This all left three drivers with a clear chance of victory – Drumont, Gallo and López. Gallo made his move with just over two laps remaining, with López followed through one lap later.
The Italian would hold on, throwing a defensive shape into the last braking zone, while Drumont and Spain clashed, the latter spinning down to third.
“This race was so stressful, I was fighting with everything on track,” said Gallo.
“With the slipstream, you had to be so, so, careful with the overtakes. It’s been a very hard first part of the race, I don’t know how I made it to the end with all the incidents on the track.”
After this round, France (Drumont) now leads the Nations Cup standings ahead of Spain (López) and Italy (Gallo). The next round is in Tokyo, Japan, 28th September, with title-deciding World Finals in Amsterdam this December.
Gran Turismo World Series 2024, Round 2, Prague, Nations Cup race results
- Valerio Gallo – Italy – 32 laps
- Kylian Drumont – France +1.655
- Coque López – Spain +4.536
- Robert Heck – USA +5.043
- Kaj de Bruin – The Netherlands +5.107
- Guy Barbara – Australia +8.322
- Takuma Miyazono – Japan +8.502
- Calen Roach – USA +8.743
- Angel Inostroza – Chile +8.743
- Jose Serrano – Spain +19.3211
- Adriano Carrazza – Brazil +22.704
- Takuma Sasaki – Japan +1:01.265
Gran Turismo World Series 2024, Nations Cup standings after Round 2
- Kylian Drumont – France – 10 points
- Coque López – Spain – 8 points
- Valerio Gallo – Italy – 7 points
- Robert Heck – USA – 3 points
- Takuma Miyazono – Japan – 6 points
- Kaj de Bruin – The Netherlands – 5 points
- Jose Serrano – Spain – 5 points
- Guy Barbara – Australia – 2 points
- Takuma Sasaki – Japan – 2 points
- Calen Roach – USA – 0 points
- Angel Inostroza – Chile – 0 points
- Adriano Carrazza – Brazil – 0 points
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