Sports Cars GT Racing - GT1, GT3, Blancpain Endurance Series & National GT Series

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*Formerly the FIA GT1 World Championship & FIA GT3 European Championship thread.*

Continuing the FIA GT1 World Championship thread into 2012 I'm making some changes to this thread. This will now be a place to talk about the GT racing in general rather than two specific championships. A list of relevant series is below:

• FIA GT1 World Championshp
• FIA GT3 European Championship
• Blancpain Endurance Series
• British GT
• ADAC GT Masters
• Australian GT
• GT3 Brasil Championship
• GT4 European Cup
• MSA BritCar Endurance Series
• Dutch Supercar Challenge
• Any other GT racing series that you can find!

The three main series that this first post will be updated with is FIA GT1 World Championship, FIA GT3 European Championship and Blancpain Endurance Series.

FIA GT1 World Championship - Many changes have been made to this series and some are very sceptical to if the series will survive the entire year. Grid's have previously dwindled due to the expensive GT1 regulations - this years GT3 regulations should mean that more cars are on the grid, but so far haven't lived up to the expectations! SRO have managed to create enough cars for the championship to take place but it remains to be seen how successful the championship will be with it's new regulations.

FIA GT3 European Championship - Due to the numerous issues with GT1, there has been very little news on the status of this championship. Again, with the SRO plucking as many teams as possible from GT3 and putting them into GT1 we could see a vastly reduced grid in comparison to 2011 - also many teams have gone to national series or the Blancpain Endurance Series (BES) due to increased running time.

Blancpain Endurance Series - At the moment the Blancpain Endurance Series (BES) is certainly standing out as the crown in the SRO's jewels. A strong grid of over 50 cars for the first round in Monza should surely be a sign of things to come - especially with the increasing interest in top line teams such as Marc VDS joining the series for 2012. The series is built around the main Total 24 Hours of Spa race which finds itself as part of the BES' calendar. The series is open to GT3 & GT4 cars providing a similar format to that of old FIA GT - each race is 3 hours long. Proper endurance racing at it's finest - this seems to be the place to be for GT racing!

2012 Calendars

FIA GT1 World Championship

6th - 9th April: Nogaro, France

20th - 22nd April: Zolder, Belgium

26th - 27th May: Navarra, Spain

8th - 10th June: Slovakia Ring, Slovakia

6th - 8th July: Algarve, Portugal

24th - 25th August: Beijing Goldenport, China

30th August - 2nd September: Ordos, China

14th - 16th September: Korean International Circuit, Korea (*)

29th - 30th September: Moscow, Russia (*)

30th November - 2nd December: Delhi, India

*Yet to be confirmed

FIA GT3 European Championship

6th - 9th April: Nogaro, France

20th - 22nd April: Zolder, Belgium

26th - 27th May: Navarra, Spain

6th - 8th July: Algarve, Portugal

29th - 30th September: Moscow, Russia (*)

5th - 7th October: Zandvoort, Netherlands

*Yet to be confirmed

Blancpain Endurance Series

15th April: Monza, Italy

3rd June: Silverstone, United Kingdom

1st July: Paul Ricard HTTT, France

29th July: Spa Franchorchamps, Belgium - 24 Hour

23rd September: Nurburgring, Germany

14th October: Navarra, Spain

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are there no GT1 cars in 'GT1 World Championship' this year? Can GT1 cars still enter the series?

There are no GT1 cars in the series this year due to rule changes by the SRO to fit with the current economic climate. This means that the 2010/2011 machinery are now illegal to race in the GT1 Championship. The GT1 cars have been replaced by GT3 cars.

More information on the new regulations.

Isn't that the same as the FIA GT3 European Championship then?

Essentially yes, but GT1 will still go abroad to more continents. It has, however, been stated that 20 cars for GT1 may not be achieved so merger rounds with GT3 Euro may take place.

Why is the FIA GT1 World Championship still called 'GT1' when they are now GT3 cars?

Good question, it's something to do with the cost of rebranding the championship would be far too much. If this changes I'll make an update but for now FIA GT1 WC is still FIA GT1 WC.

So what cars are homologated for GT3?

- Aston Martin DBRS9
- Aston Martin V12 Vantage
- Audi R8 LMS Ultra
- BMW Z4
- BMW Alpina B6
- Ford GT (Matech)
- Chevrolet Camaro (either Reiter Engineering or Yaco Motorsport)
- Chevrolet Corvette
- Ferrari F458
- Ferrari F430
- Lamborghini Gallardo LP600
- McLaren MP4-12C GT3
- Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG
- Nissan NISMO GT-R
- Porsche 911 GT3R

There's probably a few more I've missed as well!

What's the difference between FIA GT1 World Championship and the GT3 European Championship?

Again, a good question - although one at the moment I can't answer particularly well. As mentioned previously, there's been a lack of information coming from the GT3 Euro championship. I would assume the differences between the championships are going to be minimal, I expect to see GT3 Euro running the same format as last year - two one hour races. GT1 will run two one hour races as well, with the first of the two providing the grid positions for the second race.

Expect to see a larger grid in GT1 World then GT3 Europe.

Okay then, what's the difference between FIA GT1 World Championship and Blancpain Endurance Series?

GT1 World Championship is for professional drivers and Blancpain accepts a range of drivers creating Pro-Am combinations providing a range of skill sets. This also allows the gentlemen drivers that often own the cars/teams to actually drive in the races.

The format of Blancpain differs greatly to that of GT1, there is a singular race and it is 3 hours long with a mix of GT3 & GT4 cars battling it out. This format is more akin to that of the original FIA GT rather than GT1. The Blancpain series also includes the Total 24 Hours of Spa providing the drivers with more time on track.

What national series are worth watching?

Obviously, as a Brit myself, I have to recommend British GT - the grid looks to be a stunner this year. If you can catch any coverage do so! ADAC GT Masters also looks to be good with a very wide range of machinery on display including some ex-GT1 teams like Young Driver AMR taking part.

Where can I watch some of these championships?

GT1 this should be available to view on http://gt1world.com/ but coverage details have not been announced. One would also assume that you'll be able to watch GT1 on Bloomberg TV again this year.

GT3 Europe, Motors TV have previously provided coverage for this but again nothing has been confirmed. Also it could be broadcast via their website - http://gt3europe.com/.

Blancpain Endurance Series last year Motors TV provided coverage of the rounds combined with full live streams available on http://www.blancpain-endurance-series.com/.

National Series

British GT - Channel 4 and Motors TV are providing coverage this year, not live.

ADAC GT Masters - Not officially being streamed, but can be found. Broadcast on German channel Sport1.




A section for interesting links related to the championships.

http://gt1world.com/ - Home of the FIA GT1 World Championship
http://gt1world.com/gt1tv - Here you can view FIA GT1 World Championship Practice/Qualifying/Qualifying Race/Championship Races all live.
http://gt3europe.com/ - GT3 European Championship Page.
http://gt3europe.com/liveGT3.php - GT3 European Championship Live Stream
http://lendurance.tumblr.com/ - l'endurance Magazine frequently features FIA GT1/GT3 as part of their brilliant magazine.
http://speedhunters.com/ - Speedhunters often run features on both the FIA GT1 and FIA GT3. Some excellent articles to be found here.
http://www.planetlemans.com/ - Planet LeMans often has news articles on the series.
http://www.spotterguides.com/fia-gt1-2011-guide - Andy Blackmore creates spotters guides for various series, including the FIA GT1 World Championship
http://www.rpmvision.nl/ RPMVision.nl often feature reports on the FIA GT1 and various other GT racing events.

________________

I will keep this updated as often and frequently as possible, also if you find a news article please feel free to post it and I'll link it in to the first post.

 

I actually think Ratel has ruined top-line GT racing. Qualyfying race thats as long as main event? Only two car teams? Two hour events at most?

For me the only good thing is the Nissan GTR, a glorious-sounding beast...

 

I'm not sure, I think it's a combination of things which are leading to the demise of GT1 in particular (GT3 seems to be getting bigger and better every year). For a start GT1 is too expensive for most teams to consider, and with the ACO's choice to eliminate it from LeMans Series events has just made GT1 a dead end for most manufactures to invest in. That said, whilst the race formats aren't perfect (whilst I like having a qualifying race) a longer main race would be good but I guess SRO aren't interested in going after the endurance genre with GT1 anymore.

I don't agree that it's silly having 2 car teams, what is ridiculous is making each car type have two different teams (Hegersport & Vitaphone run MC12's, 2 DBR9's, etc etc) which makes it limiting for the teams to use a wider variety of cars. Also it means that seeming Phoenix Carsport are not entering this year (with 'Vettes anyway) it could mean that there are no more Corvette's in GT1 racing which would be a great shame, seeming Mad-Croc wouldn't technically be allowed to enter the Corvette. But we'll have to wait and see what actually happens concerning that issue.

And I agree with the GT-R sentiment! Fabulous sounding car.

 

Anyone know if it'll be broadcast anywhere close to the time of the event in the USA? I watched all of the GT1 races of 2010 over winter on the Speed channel, but obviously the season was over by then... any other ways I can get it to watch it?

Oh, and they didn't air GT3, so... I need a hook-up on where to get these!

Thanks!

 

You can watch the GT1 & GT3 races on their websites for free. They usually post them shortly after the races have been completed. They even let you watch the Saturday "qualifying" races.

For all the GT1 races...

http://www.gt1world.com/gt1tv

For all the GT3 races...

http://gt3europe.com/liveGT3.php

 

Thanks for the info!

 

GT1 News

Interesting changes, can't wait for the entry list to be released. I suspect it might be soon.

SOURCE: GT1 World

 

18 Entries Submitted to FIA

SOURCE: http://gt1world.com/news/article/18-entries-submitted-to-fia

JRM Group Enters 4 Cars into GT1

SOURCE: http://www.planetlemans.com/2011/02/14/jrm-group-confirms-four-car-entry-for-gt1-world/

Looking pretty good so far, and apparently theres still a manufacturer yet to be unveiled. Not sure what it could be, Lexus were rumoured, as were Veritas and Alpina. Be interested to see who has made the jump. Have to say the JRM Group car looks pretty awesome, and has some excellent drivers.

Marc VDS were also running their pre-season testing today, hopefully we might see some information from them pop up soon. Although I do know that Frédéric Makowiecki has switched from Hexis AMR to Marc VDS, hopefully some good will come of that.

 

The manufacturer yet to be revealed surely is Maserati or Corvette. My money is on Maserati. The way things looks with the Vettes is that all the cars are busy elsewhere or in private collections, so that speaks for the Masers. There is also the case of four ready to race MC12´s available. Only question is if it will be Vitaphone or someone else running them.

 

I don't think it is the Maserati. Last year there were rumours flying around that Vitaphone along with the MC12 wouldn't return to GT1 due to budget changes and the fact that there isn't a second team for them. As you should know, the SRO requires that each manufacturer to have two teams. Last year Hegersport ran but they were actually a sub-division of Vitaphone themselves (in a similar way to how JRM/Sumo Power are running this year) and according to the Bartel's this is no longer a viable option due to budget. Swiss Racing were intended to make the switch from the Nissan GT-R's to the Maserati's but then changed their mind and went to Lamborghini instead due to the Lambo's being cheaper to run.

However, there is another team which is yet to have decided what car to run. Team Bamboo from the WTCC has applied for a GT1 entry and could either run a Corvette or MC12. But, if you were a racing company what would you run? Personally, the Corvette is the immediate stand out, not in terms of wins (but lets face it you need a good car and drivers which wouldn't neccessarily happen as Hegersport didn't win anything last year) but in terms of the ability to afford to run it. Both the MC12 and Corvette are both on their way out of the GT1 series due to one being significantly more expensive to run and the other becoming increasingly difficult to find.

If Bamboo did decide to run a Corvette then they would be lined up with Mad-Croc Racing Team (who have already applied and apparently desperate to get into the championship).

I honestly think it's unlikely we'll see the more expensive MC12 return. I'm prepared to eat my words if I'm wrong though.

 

Maserati have gone. Vitaphone said they needed miracle to stay in the series. Trying to find a link... but it was in this weeks Autosport

 

Just read that Bamboo actually seems to have bought a Corvette. Another one that is, since they apparently already had one. Where they found it i have no idea.
To get four Corvettes to the startingline by late March would be an enormous feat IMHO.
But...
There were talks at the end of the season to change the four cars -two teams rule, to be able to fit in new entries with possibly new cars. None of the rumoured cars came to fruition though, so it seems they stuck with the rule anyway.
Or did they? If not, maybe we can at least see two Vettes?

 

As far as I'm aware the 4 cars and 2 teams rule is still being used. In fact I've found a article confirming this from GT1world.com from a couple of weeks ago.

Link

However, as I mentioned in a previous post if Bamboo Racing did buy a Corvette (which as it happens they have now) I think it can be pretty much be guaranteed that we'll be seeing the return of the Corvette in FIA GT1 racing for another year. As I mentioned before the Selleslagh Racing Team (Mad-Croc) are prepared to race for 2011 but were simply waiting for another Corvette team to sign up.

It's a shame none of the rumoured cars (Alpina, Veritas or Lexus) actually made it this year, I'm not entirely sure about this championships future after 2011. With the DBR9, Corvette and MC12 expiring (in terms of homologation) it could make for a very...quiet year. Unless they start thinking about next year relatively quickly. It'll be interesting to see how it all turns out.

 

I´m very happy that we (may) see Corvette back in FIA GT1. The sound they make is really something else. Not even the rumbling NASCAR-like sounding Nissans can compare.
Oh,and doesn´t DKR have something to do with Mad-croc?

Personally I never had any faith in the Veritas project, simply because it was a case of impossible to homologate. The Alpinas was turned down because of the same issue Veritas would suffer from, namely not enough roadcars built. Wich is rather bizarre, since Alpina gets their chassis from BMW, and the number of 6 series cars built is what? well, enough. Sadly, Alpina rebadges the chassis and thus makes them their own, and that´s that.
Lexus though would be very nice to get aboard GT1.
There are lots of potential cars that would be fairly easy to fit into the GT1 rules out there, but who would pay for the builds?

 

Strangely enough the report of Bamboo Racing using Corvette's wasn't true, or atleast they weren't accepted by the SRO.

Source: GT1World

Rumours are that not all 'Vettes will make it to the first round next weekend. Anyway, so there's there's the full list of cars for this year, can't wait for the championship to get underway now.

Not seen much news on GT3 yet, but I suspect that will start appearing nearer the time of the first race.

 

Great Page! I'm gonna look into following gt1 this year.

 

The first round of the FIA GT takes place this weekend at Abu Dhabi and the Qualifying is just about to start.

To view the qualifying simply scroll down on the main page to the video section (not GT1TV) and then click 'liveshow' this should then show the Qualifying session. I will post the result later.

Link

 

Apologies to the mods for the double post.

Source

Was a interesting session, can't wait for the first race tommorrow. Also, some may find this handy. Andy Blackmore (works for Need For Speed, and also designs the various spotter guides) released the GT1 World Championship version the other day, might be worth a look for those who want to keep up to speed!



Also the time for the Qualifying Race tommorrow is 13:15 GMT + 4 so, it should be starting around 09:15AM for those in the UK and of course it will be available to watch on GT1World.

 

They are not on pole anymore.

http://www.gt1world.com/news/article/penalty-for-lamborghini-pair

 

Oh! Nice work finding that one

In that case, as the article says P1, P2 and P3 now look like this for the Qualifying Race.

1 - Stefan Mucke/Darren Turner - Aston Martin DBR9 - Young Driver AMR (8)
2 - Mazime Martin/Frederic Makowiecki - Ford GT Matech - Marc VDS (41)
3 - Alex Muller/Tomas Enge - Aston Martin DBR9 - Young Driver AMR (7)

Also, as a heads up GT1World starts their coverage in a hours time from this post, both races today are also available to watch on Bloomberg (the news channel).

 

I'm ready watching now on ESPN HD, hopefully DT can get a good start to the season and Brabs has a good first showing. I'm still surprised how well the DBR9 has qualified here, it's really a high-speed aero car and Abu Dhabi is very much stop start with square corners.

 

Bit of first corner chaos, sadly taking 3 cars out. DT seems to have made a good start and even appears to be pulling away from the rest of the grid. Also, I'm surprised how well the DBR9 has done so far, considering it's pretty poor results here last year (remember it was the Matech Ford GT and Phoenix Corvettes that were on top here last year). It's also great to see all the GT-R's right up there in the thick of things.

 

Yeah they've really picked up from last year (the GT-R's), strange that Hexis seem to have plummeted from the end of last year.

Bad driving from Enge aswell, he's a really good driver, though. I still wish he was teamed up with Turner.

 

I don't think I've even seen Hexis since the start of the race, I do believe most of their strong drivers like Makowiecki have gone to other teams so they might not be running such a good line-up this year. Also, totally agree about wishing Enge was with Turner still their personalities and driving styles seemed to work so well with each other. Nice to see Enge apologising for his mistake though.

Very surprised that the new Corvette team is keeping on the pace relatively well, aside from his nice little spin he had a few minutes ago. But they still sit in 8th at the moment, which is fantastic for a team that formed literally a few weeks ago.

 

Well done to the Marc VDS Ford's!

And if anyone works at JRM Racing who finds this post, then I can speak for the nation when I say "I salute you!"

 

When's the Championship Race? ESPN aren't showing it live so I'll have to use the GT1 site.

Hoepfully DT and Mucke can scrape something like a top 5, the car looks to have the pace to scythe through the field.

 

You can watch it on Bloomberg if you'd prefer to watch it on TV, and I believe coverage starts at 15:00GMT. I must admit I'm hoping for Darren to do that same, although part of me really wants the JR Motorsport British team car to get on the podium. Not long till we find out now though! Should be close racing as per usual.

Also, I updated the first post to include the results of the Qualifying Race, I will update it later to show the points each team recieved (once I find out how many points were given that is!)

 

Is Bloomberg free? 'Cos I pay subscription on top of my Sky HD subscription to watch it on ESPN.

 

Yup, Bloomberg is free, it's channel number 502 on Sky. They generally show just the Qualifying Race and the Championship Race itself. They basically use the same stream as the website too, the only difference that I've noticed is a small crop factor and that they have the business ticker running across the bottom which I don't generally find a probelm.

 

Cheers, I hate how ESPN always show the quali race live, but then rugby or some other such rubbish is on at the same time as the main race, and they subsequently show it delayed.

It's annoying aswell as it looks fab in HD. I wish they adjust the audio levels though so the engines are louder compared to the very loud John Watson. It'd also be better if it was in 5.1 aswell, so I could hear/feel the bass of the Nissan and 'Vette throught my subwoofer.