MOZA Takes Fanatec’s Spot as Official Gran Turismo World Series Partner

A company that started in 2012 by building camera gimbal stabilizers has taken over as partner of one of the biggest esports leagues in racing simulation. On July 28, Polyphony Digital announced that MOZA Racing becomes the official partner of the Gran Turismo World Series, starting with Round 2 of the 2026 season, which kicks off August 15. MOZA takes the spot of Fanatec, a brand whose parent company filed for insolvency a year earlier.

What MOZA and Polyphony Digital actually announced

The 2026 Gran Turismo World Series runs six qualifying rounds each for the Nations Cup and the Manufacturers Cup, with points feeding into a run of live events: Abu Dhabi, Milan, an Asia-Pacific round, and the World Finals in Tokyo in December. MOZA joins the calendar right as the series shifts from the qualifying phase into its live, broadcast-heavy stretch, exactly where sponsor branding actually reaches the season's biggest audience.

MOZA Racing CEO Chenyong Guan put it directly: "At MOZA Racing, our mission has always been to make professional-grade sim racing more accessible while continually pushing the boundaries of performance and immersion." Gran Turismo producer Kazunori Yamauchi mentioned he'd encountered MOZA before, through its camera gimbals: "Gimbals and steering controllers both use the same type of technology in that they exercise very precise control over electric motors, so I had my eyes on MOZA's developmental ability, technology, and reliability for a while now."

The fourth brand to hold this role

MOZA is the fourth wheel manufacturer to carry official Gran Turismo partner status. Logitech was first, with the GT Force wheel for Gran Turismo 3 back in 2001. Thrustmaster took over in 2013 with the T-500 RS for Gran Turismo 6, and held the role through the Gran Turismo Sport era with the T-GT. Fanatec joined in July 2021, and the first product of that partnership, the Gran Turismo DD Pro, landed on PS5 in March 2022 alongside Gran Turismo 7's launch. In February 2024, the two companies added a stronger model, the Gran Turismo DD Extreme, built around a 15 Nm wheel base. That exact product line is what just lost Polyphony Digital's official backing to MOZA.

Taking over from a company that went bankrupt

Fanatec had spent years as the reference point for professional-grade direct drive wheels and held the official Gran Turismo World Series partnership before MOZA. In May 2024, Endor AG filed for insolvency in Landshut over crippling debt: €70 million in bank debt and €95 million in total liabilities. Endor's CEO blamed years of management missteps, including an oversized new headquarters and badly miscalculated component and chip orders. By September 2024, Corsair had acquired Endor's assets, including the Fanatec name itself, after the company's liquidation. No jobs were lost and the brand survived under new ownership, but the segment leadership it built moved elsewhere.

Fanatec still sells hardware under Corsair. MOZA's move into the official partner role comes from years of building out a real product line: direct drive wheels with flat-wire motors, Active Pedals, dashboards, and, as of the same announcement, its first cockpit motion system. Four years of steady product launches put MOZA in a seat that, not long ago, belonged to a company once valued in the tens of millions of euros.

The real stakes: a PlayStation license

MOZA has been PC-only until now. Officially licensed PlayStation wheels have belonged to two brands for years: Thrustmaster, in that segment since the PS3/PS4 era, and Fanatec itself, with its CSL Elite and GT DD Pro lines. The Gran Turismo World Series partnership marks MOZA's first move into that space: Polyphony Digital and MOZA have confirmed they're jointly developing a Gran Turismo-branded wheel with native PS5 support. MOZA's CEO added that the company has its first officially licensed PlayStation products in the works, with more details promised in the coming months.

Officially licensed PlayStation racing hardware has been split between two brands for years. MOZA enters that space as a company that, on the very same day, also announced its first cockpit motion system, a new flagship direct drive wheel, and a farming-sim controller: the momentum of a brand moving from "solid PC peripheral maker" to a company present across several segments at once.

What it means for players and the market

For Gran Turismo 7 players, this points to new hardware with native game support and a possibly different price point than the existing Thrustmaster and Fanatec options. For the rest of the market, it's a reminder that the "official partner" seat in sim racing isn't locked to one brand permanently. Fanatec spent a decade building that position and lost it within two years of its own bankruptcy filing. MOZA earned it within four years of its first direct drive wheel launches.

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