[FIA GT] Back to the future - GT2 2011

[Speed-King]

From Stephane Ratel's annual press confernce at Spa (source: endurance-info.com)

« Nous allons donc mettre en place un championnat qui sera très ouvert. Les GT2, GT3, GT4 et GTN seront acceptées. Nous souhaitons quatre ou cinq meetings en Europe sur des circuits prestigieux. La série devrait débuter Ã* Monza le 18 avril. La durée des courses sera de trois heures et les usines seront acceptées. Il n'y aura pas de catégorisation de pilotes mais il faut que les GT2 soient un peu libérées pour un peu plus de puissance. »

Translation:
We will introduce a very open championship. GT2, GT3, GT4 and GTN cars will be accepted. We hope to have four of five rounds in Europe on the most prestigious circuits. The series will have its debut at the April 18 at Monza. The duration of the races will be three hours and factory teams will be accepted. There will be no categorisation (gold-silver-bronze) of pilots, but the GT2 will get a little help to make them have a little more power.


That actually sounds a lot like a) the current GT-only proposals for IMSA and b) like FIA GT was until last year, just moved down one rank. I actually like it a lot and if they have a race in Germany, I'll make sure to be there.

[HORNDAWG]

Originally Posted by Speed-King

From Stephane Ratel's annual press confernce at Spa (source: endurance-info.com)


Translation:
We will introduce a very open championship. GT2, GT3, GT4 and GTN cars will be accepted. We hope to have four of five rounds in Europe on the most prestigious circuits. The series will have its debut at the April 18 at Monza. The duration of the races will be three hours and factory teams will be accepted. There will be no categorisation (gold-silver-bronze) of pilots, but the GT2 will get a little help to make them have a little more power.


That actually sounds a lot like a) the current GT-only proposals for IMSA and b) like FIA GT was until last year, just moved down one rank. I actually like it a lot and if they have a race in Germany, I'll make sure to be there.

Hmm, writing on the wall.








L.P.

[NightStalk3r]

Sounds good, as long as they sort the GT2/GT3 performance out, at the moment there is nothing separating them, and this for me is ridiculous.

These days GT3 cars are just as expensive as GT2 cars aswell, that needs sorting out.

[I Rosputnik]

Translated Eudurance Info

Planet Lemans

Doesn't sound too shabby. 3 hour GT open races looks like it could work, and GT1 looks like it's going to North America next year.

As for the car that will be barely an Alpina which in fact is barely a BMW, I hope it goes well despite how it is being created. But rather then killing off a team for another, why not just have another 4 cars? I don't see anything wrong with 28 cars.

[Speed-King]

Found some more info on a Belgian website:

The Spa 24 hours will be part of the new championship as well and the GT4 Euro Cup will be scrapped/merged into the new FIA GT Endurance Championship.

That article also mentions the Nürburgring as one of the possible venues for the new series, but I am not sure if that was said by Ratel or simply infered by the reporter.

[PorscheFanNo1]

Originally Posted by I Rosputnik

why not just have another 4 cars? I don't see anything wrong with 28 cars.

Transportation issues 24 cars with equipment fits into one plane, thats why its 24 cars, if there where room for 28 cars the feild would most likely be just that

[I Rosputnik]

Originally Posted by PorscheFanNo1

Transportation issues 24 cars with equipment fits into one plane, thats why its 24 cars, if there where room for 28 cars the feild would most likely be just that

Can't they just get a bigger plane or strap the cars to the sides of the plane?

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by I Rosputnik

Can't they just get a bigger plane or strap the cars to the sides of the plane?

Next bigger plane would probably be the Antonow An-225

And while that would be awesome and somehow extremely fitting for a guy like Ratel, I just can't see it happening...

[I Rosputnik]

Here's the official press release

And yes, that is a very nice plane.

[Speed-King]

So Ratel did indeed talk about including the Nürburgring

[NightStalk3r]

Originally Posted by Speed-King

So Ratel did indeed talk about including the Nürburgring

But does he mean the Nürburgring or THE Nürburgring?

[Speed-King]

THE Nürburgring is probably not feasible.

Unless they simply designated a regular VLN-round as one of the rounds of the championship they'd never get a field big enough to fill the Nordschleife and even then they'd have to adhere to some pretty strict noise restrictions as the track goes more or less right through the village of Breitscheid and through protected landscape...

And really, weve already got VLN for that - having the GT endurance series on the GP-track is fine with me...

[HORNDAWG]

This sounds good on paper, at this juncture, as to it panning out to be a good thing???? I hope so, but, The Rat/SRO/FIA have so dropped the ball as to GT it is..... Many things IMO need to be rectified to make this work and frankly I am not sure that it is within the current hierarchy to achieve them.






L.P.

[dj4monie]

Originally Posted by NightStalk3r

Sounds good, as long as they sort the GT2/GT3 performance out, at the moment there is nothing separating them, and this for me is ridiculous.

These days GT3 cars are just as expensive as GT2 cars aswell, that needs sorting out.

How do you figure? To somebody with alot of money a few 100K here or there doesn't matter, but the facts remain.

I went over this already, most GT3 run $350K, almost all GT2 cars run Half a Million US.

[HORNDAWG]

Originally Posted by dj4monie

How do you figure? To somebody with alot of money a few 100K here or there doesn't matter, but the facts remain.

I went over this already, most GT3 run $350K, almost all GT2 cars run Half a Million US.

Sorry, I agree with NightStalk3r.





L.P.

[dj4monie]

Originally Posted by Speed-King

Found some more info on a Belgian website:

The Spa 24 hours will be part of the new championship as well and the GT4 Euro Cup will be scrapped/merged into the new FIA GT Endurance Championship.

That article also mentions the Nürburgring as one of the possible venues for the new series, but I am not sure if that was said by Ratel or simply infered by the reporter.

Hey forget all that, shouldn't we be hitting up Ratel for some money?

Isn't this our idea?? Though we wanted small production cars (call it Touring)

They are going GT2, GT3 and GT4. I would guess GTN is slotted in for cars in National Championships.

Seems this is aimed directly at the teams currently running International GT Open and attaching the big carrot of Spa too it might just work.

[dj4monie]

Originally Posted by I Rosputnik

Doesn't sound too shabby. 3 hour GT open races looks like it could work, and GT1 looks like it's going to North America next year.

I can already tell you the target markets -

Northeast (NY, Boston, Philly, DC)
Florida
California

Florida and The Northeast because it would cut down travel cost. This is also the motivation for the World Touring Car series to come to America.

The old series was at Homestead and Sebring

California for several reasons, but FIA/Ratel has past experience at Laguna Seca and it was well-attended race when it was held here in '97 and '98.

I would put my bet right now on Laguna Seca. California Speedway is a Roval was well, last used by Grand Am several years ago, but its constantly in use by NASA and SCCA SoCal Sports Car Club for Regional Events. Its 70 miles from Los Angeles and has a rail connection. Attendance has been falling for NASCAR, it suffered after the CART/IRL split and Grand Am was never accepted here. However Super GT did run expeditionary race here and had planned on returning but that never happen. Attendance was good.

I would avoid the temptation to do a Urban Festival. It could however replace World Challenge at Long Beach, putting it right in the center of things. Since there's only ALMS, Indy Car and Indy Lights if you eliminated WC, I think the Sprint (1 hour) format would work for the series here.

They could also pair up with World Touring Car who's looking to come to America as well. I guess if Chevy does its job and markets the race featuring its Cruze and BMW dealers do their part, I guess it could have a fair turnout on its own, but that's hard to say.

I would go to both events however -

[Speed-King]

GTN will probably pretty much be a Porsche-Cup-class, as that's what's usually run in national championships below the GT3 cars around here. I could also see a couple of Ferrari Challenge cars and perhaps a few Moslers, but then I guess they'll make sure that those won't be a thread for overall victories, so it might be a bit pointless to run one of those, especially in three hour races when attrition is not as big a factor as in the 24 hours.

Something else: The classic circuits strategy is pretty smart as that means racing in countries that have an active national GT racing scene, i.e. series to prop up the field.

Especially the race at the Nürburgring could attract quite a few of the local VLN-teams... I think there's 40 or 50 cars in VLN that would be elegible for this race so there might be a really big field on hand for that round, especially if they can find a date far away from any VLN rounds... like the end-of-August date thy have right now, which is in the middle of VLNs summer break.

[dj4monie]

Originally Posted by Speed-King

GTN will probably pretty much be a Porsche-Cup-class, as that's what's usually run in national championships below the GT3 cars around here. I could also see a couple of Ferrari Challenge cars and perhaps a few Moslers, but then I guess they'll make sure that those won't be a thread for overall victories, so it might be a bit pointless to run one of those, especially in three hour races when attrition is not as big a factor as in the 24 hours.

Honestly I think attrition is a rarity in GT's anyway. What happen at Le Mans was an anomaly as its rare for all the Top teams to have problems.

You didn't have much at Sebring and that's considered the tougher of the two. You had a severely delayed Corvette Racing team after doing their best impression of bumper cars. That minor spin by the BMW put them behind and FL getting caught out in the Pits was a rarity.

If none of those happen, it would have been the typical 8-9 car battle for 3 podiums spots that's become normal in ALMS GT(2).

I think N cars will carry over from this format in the 24, its for cars that don't quite conform to GT2/3 or 4. The Moslers ran into problems in British GT, I think it was homoligation issues.

[Speed-King]

I think N cars will carry over from this format in the 24, its for cars that don't quite conform to GT2/3 or 4. The Moslers ran into problems in British GT, I think it was homoligation issues.

In theory, of course, but in reality, it's going to be a Porsche class. Belcar has a similar category below their GT3 main class and it consists (from the top of my head) of 7 or 8 Porsches and one Mosler...

I don't think BMW will commit to the series fulltime if they can't go for overall wins, which they can't if they receive a weight and power-handicap. So they'll either try to get a fully fledged GT2 homologation or just stay away from it. Beating up on Cup-Porsches and finishing somewhere in the lower top 10 doesn't really do them a lot of good...

[fiend540]

My only hope is that the US race is held at The Glen, other than that I don't really care.

[dj4monie]

Originally Posted by HORNDAWG

Sorry, I agree with NightStalk3r.

L.P.

Why? Do you have 7 digits behind your name?

Understanding rich people's ridiculous spending habits and given Jim Tafel's BK woes, when you have 7-8 digits behind your name $100-150k extra doesn't mean SHHHH to you, especially if your buying race cars.

Indy Car was focused on reducing cost because Indy Car is uber-expensive to run mid-pack.

There's no such demand for reduced cost, you two are just a couple of worry worts looking out for the Rich's man bank account (Torrie's and Republicans?) because you think it could affect car count. I can assure you, Brian Wilman has more money then he knows what do with, just won't spend it.

[dj4monie]

Originally Posted by Speed-King

I don't think BMW will commit to the series fulltime if they can't go for overall wins, which they can't if they receive a weight and power-handicap. So they'll either try to get a fully fledged GT2 homologation or just stay away from it. Beating up on Cup-Porsches and finishing somewhere in the lower top 10 doesn't really do them a lot of good...

Speaking of BMW, I think they'll go for FIA GT2 Homologation because it means dollars. If the BMW's can find victory lane once or twice in the toughest championship (ALMS) I think they'll sell a couple of them. Schubert Motorsport could be tasked with running both the M3's and Z4's since the series will be traveling together.

I think AC Schnitzer will be tasked with the Intercontinental Cup, LMS and Le Mans.

And of course RLR will be tasked with winning the ALMS Titles, all three of them if possible.

[dj4monie]

Originally Posted by fiend540

My only hope is that the US race is held at The Glen, other than that I don't really care.

Considering they installed FIA approved curbing earlier this year and now have an open date vacated by not asking Indy Car back to the track for 2011, this is very much a possibility, though I rather the ALMS have that date, not likely though.

[HORNDAWG]

Originally Posted by dj4monie

Why? Do you have 7 digits behind your name?

Understanding rich people's ridiculous spending habits and given Jim Tafel's BK woes, when you have 7-8 digits behind your name $100-150k extra doesn't mean SHHHH to you, especially if your buying race cars.

Indy Car was focused on reducing cost because Indy Car is uber-expensive to run mid-pack.

There's no such demand for reduced cost, you two are just a couple of worry worts looking out for the Rich's man bank account (Torrie's and Republicans?) because you think it could affect car count. I can assure you, Brian Wilman has more money then he knows what do with, just won't spend it.

The view is loaded with so much lopsided BS that it is........





L.P.