After a longer-than-usual offseason and a last-minute reshuffle of the calendar, the 2026 Gran Turismo World Series finally gets underway this weekend. Italy hosts a Gran Turismo live event for the first time, and the Teatro Lirico Giorgio Gaber in the center of Milan plays the part of the venue.
Of course, this isn’t how the season was meant to start.
The opener was originally pencilled in for Abu Dhabi, before Polyphony pulled the plug in March citing regional security concerns (the first cancellation of a live GTWS event since the pandemic).
Milan was confirmed as the new opener shortly afterward, and with the Singapore and closed-door Tokyo studio rounds not arriving until later in the year, this is the first chance for fans to actually be in the room with the drivers all year.
Photo by Oliver Hardt – Gran Turismo/Gran Turismo via Getty Images
Can Anyone Stop Serrano?
Jose Serrano arrives in Milan as the most dominant defending champion the series has seen in some time. The Spaniard swept the Fukuoka World Final to claim his first solo Nations Cup title last year, having already taken the Manufacturers Cup with Porsche — only the second driver ever to manage that double in a single season.
He’s also one of three seeded entries for 2026 (alongside two-time Nations champion Takuma Miyazono and Pol Urra), meaning he didn’t even need to qualify.
If anyone is going to break the Spanish stranglehold, it’ll come from a familiar group.
Urra was the only driver who could consistently match Serrano’s race pace in 2025. Miyazono remains the most successful driver in series history.
And the EMEA qualifying contingent of Kylian Drumont, Valerio Gallo, Kaj de Bruin, and newcomer Samuel Moreno is arguably the strongest regional group on the grid. Drumont in particular has come close before and arrives in 2026 having had to earn his spot rather than relying on a seed.
Photo by Oliver Hardt – Gran Turismo/Gran Turismo via Getty Images
The Spanish Question
If the 2025 season was about Serrano, the 2026 season opener might be about Spain more broadly.
Three of the twelve Manufacturers Cup seats in Milan belong to Spanish drivers (Serrano at Porsche, Urra at Mazda, Moreno at BMW), and all three will also be racing in Nations Cup.
France’s Drumont in the Audi seat makes four drivers pulling double duty on Saturday; a punishing schedule that will test endurance as much as outright pace. Whether that hurts them or whether the extra track time sharpens them up is one of the weekend’s more interesting subplots.
A Manufacturers Cup Reshuffle
The Manufacturers Cup field looks meaningfully different from 2025.
BMW topped qualifying for the second straight year, but the bigger story is who’s around them.
Audi qualified second after failing to make the field at all in 2025, lifted in no small part by the offseason transfer of Drumont from Subaru. Defending champion Porsche sits fourth in qualifying but brings Serrano and a familiar lineup, while two-time champion Toyota and regular contender Mercedes-AMG round out the obvious threats.
For Milan, each manufacturer sends its EMEA representative, with the Americas and Asia-Oceania drivers swapping in at later rounds.
Several teams are leaning on newcomers and returnees: Ferrari brings German debutant Maximilian Kroll, who set the all-time single-round qualifying record on his way to the team. AMG hands its EMEA seat to British rookie Jack Balding. Subaru (having lost Drumont and Miyazono) debuts British driver Callum Moxon, one of very few top-flight GT7 players who races on a controller rather than a wheel.
Closing
A defending champion in imperious form, a venue and country hosting their first World Series event, and a Manufacturers Cup grid that looks substantially different from a year ago. There’s plenty to chew on before the racing has even started.
The action kicks off on Saturday May 23 with the Manufacturers Cup at 15:00 UTC, and the Nations Cup at 17:30 UTC after a short break. As always, drop into the GTPlanet forums if you’re heading to the venue!
