Not for GT3, and doesn't really account for inflation, but it was reported that Audi Sport spent $15 million USD on the Audi R10 LMP1 program for the ALMS in 2008 (probably similar for '06 and '07). That's for a prototype, an OEM prototype that was fully proprietary, and was like a decade in a half ago. But the ALMS had a roughly similar composition of races back then to now.
I know that the point of GTP and even the GT3 classes was to reduce costs to sustainable/palpable levels. Also GT3 does have economy of scale (GT3 racing is almost as common as common can be in road racing). But even now in IMSA, you do have 3 hour or less sprint races, but also a 6 hour race, a 8 hour race, a 12 hour race, a 24 hour race and a 10 hour race to go with the sprint races. And a total of a dozen races overall a season (though not each class runs each weekend).
Even in GTD you're still looking at what is most likely a multi-milion dollar investment to run the full season.
|