GT5's actually become a rather social game over the course of its development, and the current build supports BBS, personal logs, mail, and something called My Lounge. That turns out to be a friends network of sorts, where you can gather with other players and chat, or check up on their progress in the game, alongside the nifty stuff like setting up races and spectating on events that are already underway.
You really can follow the action as closely as you want, too, moving about the track, focusing in on the separate cars, and sending messages to the players who are racing, hopefully catching them at just the wrong moment so they make a mess of the next corner and dump their Porsche into a nearby tree.
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