0 0The GT7 World Series 2026 Manufacturers Cup Exhibition 3 runs four Gr.3 rounds at Deep Forest Raceway, Laguna Seca, Monza and Suzuka from Saturday 31 October to Saturday 21 November, and no two rounds share the same tyre and fuel rules.
Polyphony Digital confirmed the schedule on 26 October. Each round has a qualifying session and a final race, you drive your own garage Gr.3 car with BoP on and tuning prohibited, and the only setting you can change is brake balance. The full announcement is on gran-turismo.com, and the race times for every round are on the championship page.
If you raced the last one, the format will be familiar from our Exhibition 2 Manufacturers Cup guide. What's new is the BoP. This is the first Manufacturers Cup since update 1.72 changed the Gr.3 balance and the default car settings, so the car you drove in August may not be the car to drive now.
Round 1: Deep Forest Raceway, 31 October
Deep Forest Raceway opens the series with 15 laps, and it's the most aggressive setup of the four. Tyre wear is ×7 in both qualifying and the race, fuel is ×2 in the race, and you have to use both Racing Hard and Racing Medium. That makes at least one stop a certainty, and the real question is which compound you start on.
The ×7 wear in qualifying matters too. You only get five minutes, and the tyres fall away quickly, so the first clean flying lap is likely to be your best one. Don't plan on building up to it.
Round 2: Laguna Seca, 7 November
Laguna Seca is 15 laps on Racing Medium only, with ×6 tyre wear, ×3 fuel and one compulsory pit stop. With a single compound, the stop isn't about tyre choice. It's about timing, and ×3 fuel means how much you save, and when, can decide where you come out.
Round 3: Monza, 14 November
Monza is the one round with no strategy at all. It's 13 laps on Racing Hard, with ×1 fuel, ×1 tyre wear and no compulsory stop. That makes it a pure sprint, where qualifying position, the slipstream and getting through the first chicane cleanly will decide most of the result.
Round 4: Suzuka, 21 November
The final round at Suzuka is the longest: 20 laps with ×1 fuel, ×2 tyre wear and both Racing Medium and Racing Soft required, so it's another compulsory two-compound race.
It's also a familiar one. Exhibition 2 opened at Suzuka in August with exactly the same laps, fuel, wear and tyre rules, and the Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) was the most used car on that leaderboard by a distance, more than twice as popular as the Ferrari 296 in second. The difference this time is update 1.72, so August is a starting point, not an answer.
Four rounds, four different races: a two-compound race with ×7 wear, a forced stop on triple fuel, a flat-out sprint at Monza and a 20-lap two-compound finale at Suzuka.
Slots, points and the rule that catches people out
Every round runs the same race several times, so you can pick the slot that suits you. Entries open 15 minutes before each start. GT1 League races run at 17:00, 19:00 and 21:00 GMT, which is 18:00, 20:00 and 22:00 in Central Europe. The GT2 and GT3 Leagues have ten slots, every hour from 08:00 to 12:00 and from 17:00 to 21:00 GMT.
All four rounds count towards the overall ranking. The catch is that you can enter more than one slot in a round, but only the last race you enter counts, even if an earlier one went better. If you've already had a good result, think carefully before you join another slot.
Ties are split by total points, then the best single-round score, then Driver Rating, then Sportsmanship Rating, and finally by who started playing GT7 first.
The credits on offer
Points Ranking Rewards are paid in credits at the end of the season, based on where you finish in four rankings: regional, manufacturer and two local rankings. In the GT1 League, the top 5% of the regional ranking earns 4,000,000 Cr., the top 25% earns 2,000,000 Cr. and the top 75% earns 1,000,000 Cr. The GT2 and GT3 Leagues pay half of that at every level. The manufacturer and local rankings pay out too, at lower amounts, so a solid season across all four rounds is worth a lot more than one great race.
Final Thoughts
This is one of the more interesting Manufacturers Cup line-ups in a while, because every round asks a different question. Deep Forest and Suzuka are about compounds, Laguna Seca is about fuel and timing, and Monza is about nerve in the slipstream. Suzuka is the one we'd watch most closely, because it's the only round we can compare directly with August, and it will show how much update 1.72 really moved the Gr.3 order.
Let us know what you think about this combination. It looks like it could be a very interesting one.
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