Polyphony Digital has announced the first Manufacturers Cup Exhibition Season of 2026, getting underway this weekend ahead of the official championship later in the year.
At six rounds and running through to June 7, it’s a substantially longer event than the short four-round sprints that became the norm through much of 2025, matching the length of last year’s third Exhibition Season. Gr.4 cars appear in two of the six rounds, which has real consequences for which manufacturers are worth picking.
The Schedule
The full six-round calendar is as follows:
- Round 1 – April 25/26 – Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya GP (No Chicane)/Gr.3 – 18 laps
- Round 2 – May 2/3 – Fuji International Speedway (Short)/Gr.4 – 10 laps
- Round 3 – May 9/10 – Dragon Trail – Gardens/Gr.3 – 20 laps
- Round 4 – May 16/17 – Sardegna – Road Track A/Gr.3 – 15 laps
- Round 5 – May 30/31 – Mount Panorama Motor Racing Circuit/Gr.4 – 13 laps
- Round 6 – June 6/7 – Nürburgring Endurance/Gr.3 – 5 laps
Rounds 1 through 4 follow the alternating Friday/Saturday format at roughly weekly intervals, before a two-week gap opens up ahead of Round 5. The finale at the Nürburgring follows a week later.
What to Watch
The two Gr.4 rounds are the headline consideration for manufacturer selection. Round 2 at Fuji Short is a straightforward Gr.4 sprint, with no mandatory tire or pit requirement. Round 5 at Mount Panorama is a Gr.4 race with a mandatory pit stop and a 4x tire wear rate in qualifying, requiring a pit stop strategy on top of car selection.
Round 3 at Dragon Trail – Gardens and Round 4 at Sardegna both carry elevated tire wear, at 5x and 4x respectively in both qualifying and the race. Round 4 also mandates a Racing Medium or Racing Soft tire, removing the harder compound as an option.
Round 6 at the Nürburgring Endurance covers five laps of the full circuit, with a mandatory pit stop and a 13-minute qualifying window.
Leagues and Points
If you haven’t raced in the GTWS before, it works differently from the Daily Races. Players are assigned a League at the point they first enter the season, based on their Driver Rating (DR) rank at that time, and it doesn’t change after that, even if your DR does during the season.
DR A and A+ players race in GT1 League. DR B players slot into GT2 League, and anyone at C or below races in GT3 League. The regulations are identical across all three tiers, with the only differences being the entry slot times and the points available per race. Wins in top GT1 lobbies can be worth several hundred points, while GT3 lobby wins tend to land in the low double-digits.
Polyphony has also introduced a points adjustment for GT1 this season: an additional 100 points will be awarded uniformly at the top tier, starting from this event, with further adjustments planned for future exhibitions.
Your final ranking is based on your best five scores from the six rounds, giving you one round to drop. Only your last entered race in each round counts towards your score, so entering an additional slot after a solid result will overwrite it.
Rewards
Credit rewards scale with how you finish across the Regional, Manufacturer, and Local rankings within your league. GT1 players can earn up to 10m credits in total across all four ranking categories, while GT2/GT3 players have a 5m ceiling. The top tier (Gold, top 5%) in the Regional ranking is worth 5m credits for GT1 players and 2.5m for GT2/GT3. The full reward breakdown is available on the official Gran Turismo site.
The first round gets underway on April 25. For car setup tips ahead of Barcelona, the GTPlanet GT7 Car Tuning forum is a good place to start.
