A product of three years of work with the FIA, the game will harness two separate officially endorsed world championships, which will feature both online qualifying rounds and live streamed regional and world finals.

It's remains unclear whether these finals will be live events, but FIA chief technical officer Charlie Whiting will be a judge in the FIA World Final, according to the game's creator Kazunori Yamauchi.

There are two categories of competition within the game; a Manufacturer Fan Cup and a Nations Cup, with class divisions based on age and region.

Winners will progress to regional finals for the top players in each country - who will then move to a World Final.

The regions are split into three loose time zones: the Americas; Europe, Africa and the Middle East; Asia and Oceania.

The game will also introduce an FIA Gran Turismo Digital Race License which, once earned, will then pass information in to 22 participating regional car clubs including those in the UK, Germany, Belgium, India and China.

The clubs will then decide how to use that information and whether further testing is necessary before granting applicants with a race licence proper.

Yamauchi confirmed that this new system will not replace the GT Academy but will run alongside it.

The Japanese, who will race a BMW M6 GT3 in next weekend's Nurburgring 24 Hours added, that while this is not the long-awaited GT7 full follow-up to the PS3 GT6 game, he said 'there is enough new content in this game that I wish I had called it that now'.

Other details include the fact that the game will be PlayStation VR compatible from launch, and that for the first time in GT history there will a full livery editor so that players can customize cars, race suits and helmets. A comprehensive damage model has also been promised.

The game will feature a campaign mode, though not as extensive as those found in the main series, with the goal being to teach players about racing etiquette and will likely form the basis of the license model.

The weight of the game is focused on online racing, known as Sport Mode, and a sportsmanship rating has been introduced to better balance players and to try and prevent griefing and poor driving standards.