Farewell Blancpain

[NaBUru38]

Blancpain will no longer sponsor any SRO championship.

https://sportscar365.com/sro/blancpa...deal-with-sro/

[GT6]

That will be big loss to sportscar racing, hope others fill the void

[deggis]

The series name has become basically synonymous with Blancpain.

[rich07]

Originally Posted by deggis

The series name has become basically synonymous with Blancpain.

Very much so. Since 2012 I believe?? I still refer to GT World European Endurance Cup as BES and will no doubt keep referring to it as that for some time.

It’s like Clipsal ending their sponsorship of the Adelaide Supercar street round but years on everyone still refers to it as Clipsal.

[deggis]

Originally Posted by rich07

Very much so. Since 2012 I believe?? I still refer to GT World European Endurance Cup as BES and will no doubt keep referring to it as that for some time.

It’s like Clipsal ending their sponsorship of the Adelaide Supercar street round but years on everyone still refers to it as Clipsal.

Or generally any series with title sponsorship. But in this case it is harder because Blancpain has been onboard since its inception and "SRO" has not often been used in this context.

This problem is probably a big reason why IMSA revived the IMSA name after the initial confusion with the name (United...Tudor...Weathertech).

[NaBUru38]

Lotti invented the TCR brand, and it worked.

I think that SRO should rename GT3 and GT4 into GTR and GTS (as in Ratel and Stéphane ;-)

[Badlands99]

Whilst I have a mild interest in the higher end watch manufacturers, I have never been a collector but my interest in Endurance/Sportscar racing made me aware of the company and actually led me to purchase one of their watches - sponsorship does work!
Shame to see them go as they have become synonymous with the series and I hope that SRO can find a suitable replacement quickly - this has been muted over the last few months though, so I would be very surprised if SRO don't have something lined up.

[tux]

Grasser stepping away from SRO, moving to IMSA - https://sportscar365.com/imsa/iwsc/g...s-sro-program/

[Bcarr6]

Originally Posted by tux

Grasser stepping away from SRO, moving to IMSA - https://sportscar365.com/imsa/iwsc/g...s-sro-program/

Seems like a good time for them to try something new, they have clearly not been quite as involved in GT Challenge this year, and FFF clearly have the strong factory support in the series right now.

Be nice to see a double entry in IMSA from them