GT6 has barely launched, but already the masterminds behind the legendary racing simulator are working on the next one. Yes folks, word is Gran Turismo 7 will land next year.

Fingers crossed, anyway. At this year’s Los Angeles Motor Show, TG.com was snooping around the evil, gorgeous, and really quite evil looking AMG Vision Gran Turismo, when who else should pop up than Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi.

Resisting the temptation to challenge him on the game itself, he told us how the PlayStation 3’s hardware was pushed to the very limit while making GT6, but that the next console, the PS4, should make everything easier for the seventh instalment.

“We don’t want to take too long on Gran Turismo 7,” Kazunori told us. “Best-case scenario? Next year. In GT6 we really had to tune the software 100 per cent to maximise the PS3’s architecture, but of course the PS4’s hardware is much better, so I think the overall quality of the game across the board will be boosted when you come to play it”.

So what about Forza? Is Kazunori and his team concerned about his chief rival? “We always respect our competition,” he says. “The racing genre isn’t really that big in its entirety, so I’m glad that everyone works hard to boost the genre as a whole.”

The man knows his games, clearly - so much so he practices every day on Gran Turismo 6 with a three-screen setup. Largely to help him do his other job: racing in the VLN. “We’ve set up my car on GT6 exactly the same as the car we take to the Nürburgring [a Lexus IS-F]; suspension, aero, even the rear wing angles.” This is expert level geekery in action, though it comes with good reason: Kazunori’s actually quite terrified of the ‘Ring.

“It’s such a dangerous track, I get scared every time I race around it. Cars crash and burst into flames, launch into the air, it happens all the time. It’s more of an adventure than a race sometimes.”

He’s even had his own adventure too; one that draws a painful parallel. “In the VLN once I crashed on the same corner that Niki Lauda crashed on all those years ago. We had three cars lined up next to each other, going in at around 220km/h (137mph), and the cars just hit each other. I swung off into a wall.” Luckily, Kazunori was OK, but his IS-F, erm, wasn’t.

Not that this has stopped his bravado, mind. More humble a man you will never meet, but when we talk Stig, his face lights up. “I sat next to Stig on track once. He spoke to me in morse code, I think. He’s very good, I like the way he drives. He drives more like a street racer than a track racer, the way he controls the car, letting it slide. I like his style.

“But I think he was more nervous that I was in the car with him.”

Come on Kazunori-san. Only ducks terrify the Stig.