This coming weekend, Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi will once again be taking to the Nürburgring in what's become an anomaly on the motor racing calendar in the modern era; a 24 hour race around one of the sport's most challenging tracks, where over 160 cars compete through the turns and trails carved through the Eifel mountains in an event that simply shouldn't be possible in the restrained, risk averse atmosphere of the 21st century.
You can accuse Yamauchi and the team he looks over at Polyphony of many things. Of being out of touch with the driving game as it is today. Of a work-rate that will have seen Turn 10 deliver two fully-featured Forza Motorsport games on the Xbox One by the time Gran Turismo Sport comes out on PlayStation 4 at the end of this year (and despite a softening of the message around the game and a generosity of content within, it's still highly likely this remains a prelude to a Gran Turismo 7 proper).
You can't, however, accuse Yamauchi of being out of touch with motorsport, or of feigning his passion. The launch event for Gran Turismo Sport, taking place in the generous space of Stratford's Copper Box Arena, is decorated with 19 years of Gran Turismo's history, time which has seen it seep its way into the sport. There are real-life racing drivers who got their break through Gran Turismo's Academy programme mingling with the crowd, sitting between life-size models of impossibly beautiful Vision cars, grand fictions created in partnership between Polyphony and major automotive manufacturers.
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