Automaker Hyundai Motor Company has officially announced that it will host the “2026 Hyundai N Virtual Cup“, a sim racing esports competition that organisers describe as the largest of its kind held in South Korea. The tournament is being organised together with the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the G-STAR Organising Committee.
Sim racing is a form of esports where players compete in realistic driving simulation games, often using steering wheel and pedal setups instead of a controller. This year’s edition will be played on Gran Turismo 7, a racing simulator that is commonly used in the sim racing scene. The game has also been chosen as an official esports event at the 2026 Asian Games, which will be held in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan. Hyundai already has a connection to that event: the company supplied sim racing equipment in May for a national team selection tournament.
Players competing in the upcoming N Virtual Cup will be able to drive a virtual version of the Hyundai N 2025 Vision Gran Turismo, a concept car Hyundai first showed in 2015 around the launch of its N performance sub-brand. Online qualifiers begin on August 14, and the top 24 finishers will move on to the main tournament. Alongside the main competition, Hyundai is also running separate event matches, including a tournament for university students and one for influencers.
Hyundai says the tournament is intended to grow interest in its N brand among esports fans and support the domestic game and esports industry, though the company did not provide specific figures on prize money or expected participation numbers yet.
Park Jun-woo, Senior Vice President of Hyundai Motor’s N Management Office, said (translated from Korean), “The Hyundai N Virtual Cup sim racing competition will provide customers with easier access to motorsports and contribute significantly to the spread of high-performance automotive culture in Korea,” adding, “We hope that more customers will be able to experience Hyundai N through the familiar platform of gaming.”
This is not Hyundai’s first venture into esports. Last year, the company held a large in-house esports event called the Autoever Rock Festival to help employees communicate more easily and promote a more engaging workplace culture. Apart from this, Hyundai also hosted the 2024 Hyundai N Virtual Cup, its inaugural global sim-racing esports tournament. The tournament used Assetto Corsa and attracted more than 2,800 participants across Korea, United States, Europe, and China.
