2012 Brazilian GT Championship

[Erick Cunha]

2012 season is on the way!! With several news, and a new order. Let's begin:

- The 2010-11 GT Brasil season were a joint promotion between SRO Latin America and Auto+ Entretenimento. Both parts split their ways, SRO-LA is still with the GT Championship and Auto+ now promotes a breakdown-ish series: the Top Series (which occupies the gap left after the demise of the Brazilian Endurance Championship);
- This season will feature three classes of racing: GT3, GT4 and GT Premium (for older GT3 cars);
- Three news are present on the schedule: Guaporé, the street race at Salvador (one week after the Stock Car race) and Cascavel (current suffering a major rework). The IndyCar support race was a deal signed by Auto+, and the Top Series will race at the Anhembi this year;
- The Mercedes-Benz Grand Challenge is back, and for this year the series will also have the Spyder Race light prototypes series supporting the events.

Here is the schedule:

April 22 - Santa Cruz do Sul
May 27 - Curitiba
June 24 - Interlagos
July 22 - Jacarepaguá
September 2 - Salvador (only GT and Spyder Race)
October 14 - Campo Grande
October 28 - Guaporé
November 18 - Cascavel (TBC)
December 16 - Interlagos

And Round 1 is also on the way!! This weekend the championship will begin at Santa Cruz do Sul, with some news:

- Defending champion team BMG Racing is now BMW Team Brasil. BMW is officially supporting the series, and the team have four cars: two Z4 GT3 and two M3 GT4. In GT3, Cacá Bueno and Cláudio Ricci will take the #0 Z4 and defending champion Valdeno Brito will team up with Constantino Junior in the #1 Z4; In GT4, defending GT3 champion Matheus Stumpf will team up with reigning 2-time MINI Challenge champion Patrick Gonçalves in the #11 M3 and series newcomers Leonardo Cordeiro and William Starostik will take the #12 M3;
- Dragão team will make the official debut of the Lotus Evora GT4 in Brazilian tracks. Válter Pinheiro and Leonardo Burti (brother of Stock Car and former F1 driver Luciano) will drive the #6 car.

Race 1 on the Saturday at 15:10 LT (18:10 GMT) and Race 2 on the Sunday at 14:30 LT (17:30 GMT). And here is the entry list for Round 1, with 19 cars entered (10 GT3, 5 GT4 and 4 GT Premium):

#	Driver	Team	Car	Class
0	Cacá Bueno/Cláudio Dahruj	BMW Team Brasil	BMW Z4 GT3	GT3
1	Valdeno Brito/Constantino Júnior	BMW Team Brasil	BMW Z4 GT3	GT3
3	Rafael Derani/Cláudio Ricci	CRT Crystal Team	Ferrari F458 Italia	GT3
16	Allam Khodair/Marcelo Hahn	Bläusiegel (FullTime Sports)	Lamborghini Gallardo LP600+	GT3
18	Fernando Poeta/TBC driver	Mottin Racing	Lamborghini Gallardo LP560	GT3
20	Wagner Ebrahim/Wagner Ebrahim	Ebrahim Motors	Audi R8 LMS	GT3
30	Cléber Faria/Duda Rosa	BVA Racing Team (Scuderia 111)	Lamborghini Gallardo LP560	GT3
33	Bruno Garfinkel/Rafael Daniel	Scuderia 111	Lamborghini Gallardo LP600	GT3
75	Henrique Assunção/Ronaldo Kastropil	Scuderia 111	Lamborghini Gallardo LP560	GT3
105	Vanuê Faria/Renan Guerra	BVA Racing Team (Scuderia 111)	Lamborghini Gallardo LP560	GT3
6	Válter Pinheiro/Leonardo Burti	Dragão Lotus	Lotus Evora	GT4
11	Matheus Stumpf/Patrick Gonçalves	BMW Team Brasil	BMW M3 GT4	GT4
12	Leonardo Cordeiro/William Starostik	BMW Team Brasil	BMW M3 GT4	GT4
21	Fábio Greco/Valter Rossete	Greco-Vivo	Maserati Gran Turismo-MC	GT4
57	Sérgio Laganá/Alan Hellmeister	M2 Competições	Aston Martin Vantage N24	GT4
4	Felipe Roso/VinÃ*cius Roso	Metasa	Ferrari F430	GT Premium
10	Cristiano de Almeida/Pierre Ventura	Mottin Racing	Lamborghini Gallardo	GT Premium
15	Felipe Tozzo/Raijan Mascarello	Mottin Racing	Ferrari F430	GT Premium
46	Carlos Kray/Andersom Toso	CKR	Lamborghini Gallardo LP520	GT Premium