Vettel in Monaco, 2011. Image: Nick J. Webb

To absolutely no one’s surprise, Red Bull Renault star Sebastian Vettel tied up his second world championship in two years with a third place finish in yesterday’s Japanese Grand Prix. While the title race had been all but locked up for the past several events, it was still mathematically possible for McLaren Mercedes driver Jenson Button to grab the title at the start of yesterday’s race. To do so, however, Button would have needed a victory in every remaining race, with Vettel finishing in tenth spot or lower.

Mathematically possible and likely are two different things; Button did indeed take the victory in Japan, but Vettel’s third place finish assured his spot in history as the youngest driver to ever win two F1 championships. Watching the German drive this season, there’s no doubt that he earned the victory with talent that appears to be head and shoulders above the rest of the F1 grid. While the Red Bull Renault chassis is competitive, it’s far from flawless, and the mark of a truly great driver is his ability to overcome the shortcomings of any car he’s piloting. By that standard, Vettel is a truly great driver.

If you own Gran Turismo 5 for the PlayStation 3, Vettel’s win is a victory for you, too. In honor of his second championship, Polyphony Digital is giving away the Red Bull X2010 hypercar, for a very limited period of time. When you log in to the PlayStation network, head on over to the Community section to claim your free car, which you can then use in a special time trial event at the Suzuka circuit. A gold finish is worth 5,000,000 credits, so it’s certainly worth a little time and effort.

The premise is simple: take the 16 fastest virtual drivers from Gran Turismo 5, then see if racing a car on a gaming system can translate into racing a car in real life. Along the way, there’s plenty of drama, including a military style obstacle course in the mud, and enough conflicting personalities to keep the show interesting.

Just by watching the 2:00 trailer below, I can tell you that these guys are in for a rude awakening, and not one of them seems to know what being a professional racer is all about. One contestant comments, “To be a professional race car driver, you never work another day in your life;” try telling that to guys like Dan Wheldon and Nick Heidfeld. When your doing promotional appearances in strange cities for days on end, or hustling a new sponsor so you can afford a ride next year, that looks suspiciously like work to me.

Being a racer at a professional level today takes a combination of skill, marketability and the ability to charm sponsors out of millions of dollars to fund your racing career. Being good behind the wheel of a car is only one component of the total skill set required to make it in racing, and another big element is luck. As with rock and roll, you can only get so good, then you need to get lucky to make the big time.

I was going to pass on this series, but the trailer looks interesting enough that I’ll give it a shot. The show debuts on Speed at 10:00 ET tonight. What’s your take? Are you watching it?

Source: You Tube

With the NEW set release date of November 24, 2010, Gran Turismo 5 begs to be the best racing simulation game ever. All of the hype and speculation around its release date over the past couple years has had everyone up in arms where some were resorting to playing Forza 3 on the Xbox 360 while hope of an actual release of GT5 faded into the background. Now with a confirmed release date, GT5 looks to be ‘awesome’ as the kid in the commercial below puts it. The GT5 commercial below is rather hilarious featuring Kevin Butler as Sony’s VP of ‘Add More Awesome’ says he is not going to give back the press fleet of cars they used for the making of the game. I don’t blame him, GT5 does look like it has plenty of awesome but we won’t know for sure until two days from now. Now if I could only afford that new 3D TV I saw in the store over the weekend so I can enjoy GT5 in full 3D HDTV bliss. Enjoy the commercial below!

While many of us are sick and tired of waiting for Gran Turismo 5 to be released, they have teased us to death with clips of the hot new cars to be included in the new game for PS3. The Toyota FT-86 is another item that we just cannot wait for. GT5 has released a trailer of the FT-86G, a “Sports” Concept version of the FT-86 Concept. The video below shows the FT-86G all trimmed out like you have never seen before in hi-resolution glory on the PlayStation 3. The engine still does not sound like the typical Subaru flat-4 but look at that front-mount intercooler! Hmmm. Enjoy the video and extremely high-resolution (8MP) images below!

[source: GTPlanet]

No doubt that the upcoming PS3 game, Gran Turismo 5 will be a hit. But wouldn’t be an even greater hit if it included the new Toyota FT-86 Concept car that everyone is ranting and raving over this week? Well, the good news is, The Toyota FT-86 will be in the GT5 game. The bad news is, GT5 is not out yet. WE may have to wait until after Christmas to get our hands on it but then again, some sources say we will get GT5 beforehand. Until then, enjoy the video of the Toyota FT-86 Concept in action on Gran Turismo 5 below!

The two newest rivalry racing games to hit the Xbox 360 and Play Station 3 (PS3) pay tribute to the new Ferrari 458 Italia in two demonstration videos. Gamers and car enthusiasts are still trying to decide which will be the best simulation/racing game to hit the market yet. Below are two new videos portraying the new Ferrari 458 Italia on both video games to help you make your decision. Enjoy!

Someone had to do it, so why not ask a few of my gaming buddies what they think about the upcoming Gran Turismo 5 when put up against Forza Motorsport 3 or vice-versa. Obviously, if you own an Xbox 360 you are partial to Forza Motorsport and then if you own a PS3, then you would naturally take a liking to the Gran Turismo franchise.

Considering how tight money is these days, many video gamers and car enthusiasts are going to make a single choice between Gran Turismo 5 and Forza Motorsport 3 instead of buying both of them, not to mention, more than likely they only own one of the mainstream video game systems.

Now take me for example, I own both a PS3 and Xbox 360 and I have played Gran Turismo 5 Prologue till my fingers were blue. Now, I ended up trading in Forza 2 for another game because it was not my thing although you could not compare the online game-play to GT5P. I will give Forza some serious kudos, it is a bad-assed game and something that I may consider purchasing just to do a direct comparison of Forza 3 and GT5.

Forza Motorsport 3, hands-down, has some of the best looking car-graphics seen in any video game. I do not think you can argue this case much as Turn 10 is utilizing the full capabilities of the Xbox 360. You thought your Xbox 360 ran hot before, wait till you pop in the Forza 3 disc. Forza Motorsport 3 incorporates over 400 cars and 100 real-world tracks around the world. Other racing games such as Gotham, were able to bridge the arcade gamer into a “real driving simulator” but Forza 3 is far from this with the exception of its ability to allow a racer with any skill level jump-in and drive. Before, some racing games were so difficult to the point that the hard-core gamer became somewhat frustrated. Forza Motorsport 3 is pure automotive enthusiast driven with a lot of heart of the same genre put into the creation of this game. You have everything from drifting, customizing the looks, tuning, to online multiplayer, driving assists, HD graphics and more.

Gran Turismo 5 is also a race-bread game that is nothing short of Forza Motorsports 3’s heart-felt love of the sport. Accuracy and detail of cars was something perfected by the Gran Turismo franchise and everyone else followed their after. All the Japanese originated company Polyphony had to do was build on top of an empire that pushed the envelope in racing and simulation video games. Gran Turismo, marketed as “the real driving simulator” was just that, something that felt and looked real. To be critical of GT5 I have to dig up the fact that it never had car damage or the online multiplayer gaming capabilities to compare to that of the Xbox 360’s Forza Motorsport games. GT5 is supposed to fix a lot of this and therefore, it will be an all-out duel between Forza Motorsport 3 and Gran Turismo 5 once they both hit the market. That leaves the question of whats-up with the Nascar images for GT5?

I asked my friends which one they would like the best and the majority said Forza Motorsport 3. I asked about 8 of my buddies and out them, 2 exclusively owned a PS3, 2 owned both an Xbox 360 and PS3, and the remaining 4 exclusively owned an Xbox 360. 7 of them have played both Forza Motorsport 2 and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue at some point and time and the one loaner has only played Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Out of my friends asked about both games, none of them liked one game as much as the other. It was either Gran Turismo 5 Prologue or Forza Motorsport 2. 5 of them choose Forza Motorsport 2 and the other 3 liked Gran Turismo 5 Prologue better. So what does this say about the upcoming Forza Motorsport 3 and Gran Turismo 5? Sorry to say, but it means the ultimate racing/simulation game is Forza Motorsport 3…. If you own an Xbox 360…. Or… the best racing game is Gran Turismo 5…. If you own a PS3. We really wont know for sure until we get to experience both of these marvels in front of our own HD screen.

Forza Motorsport 3 is due to come out October 27, 2009 and Gran Turismo 5 is estimated to be out on December 30, 2009.

For now, you can vote for what you think is the best racing game. Forza Motorsport 3 or Gran Turismo 5?

[poll id="9"]

The race is literally ON! A new preview of Gran Turismo 5 for the PS3 was introduced just recently and now Forza Motorsport 3 for the Xbox 360 has injected the market with some serious car-porn-in-motion with new images and a video trailer.

From a reasonable distance, the preview images from Forza Motorsport 3 actually look like “real” cars and not a “video game”.  Developer, Turn 10, has set out to turn gamers into car lovers and car lovers into gamers. But maybe the developers have made something that is too “real” and gamers just won’t have it by resorting to arcade style games. Maybe it is the “realness” that will bring the car enthusiasts to the video game world. You will never know until one of the best racing games hits the market.

Forza Motorsport 3, with its 400 cars from 50 manufacturers, 100 tracks and High-Def (HD) at 60 frames per second, it is a major contender for PlayStation’s Polyphony Digital developed Gran Turismo 5. The battle is seriously on and we want to be there when game and car lovers pick their favorite.

Clean! That’s what Forza Motorsport 3 is all about. Check out the images and video below and I am sure you will agree. Oh, tell Polyphony Digital (Gran Turismo 5 developers) that they have met their match!

[sources: ign.com, gametrailers, youtube]