FIA GT World Championship 2012

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by PorscheFanNo1

Do anyone actually think the bop will make the GT3 cars as fast as the GT1 cars? Surely Ratel will make sure a GT1 car will win, anything else would be silly for sure, especially when Nissan has a GT1 car!
So, taking the Z4 GT3 and making some rather cheap changes (cheap is always relative) and thus making it more likely to win doesnt sound like a bad move for me! BMW are always in it to win, take this as a hint that the GT3 cars will not be as fast as the GT1 cars next year, they will be gridfillers at best.

GT3s are already nearly as fast if not faster than the current low-tech GT1s, so when on top of that BoP comes to play it's a nobrainer really. There will probably be only 2-6 GT1s in the championship next year (if it goes ahead), so it's oblivious that they're gonna favour BoP-GT3 as it should be covering about 90% of the field - depending what happes with GT2. They might wanna hand Nissan a win for two to make them feel happy, but that's about it IMO...

[alexkiller8]

mmm i have to disagree, gt3 cars are still far slower than gt1 cars, 5 seconds faster in fast tracks, 2-3 seconds faster in slower traks.
If you see the timelaps of 2010 spa
2010 GT1pole: 2.17.605
2010 24h spa faster qualifying gt3: 2.22.807

or this year portimao
GT1pole:1.42.427 (even if fastest lap was 1.41.959 in Q2)
GT3pole:1.45.414

silverstone
GT1pole:1.58.967
GT3pole:2.03.042

navarra
GT1pole:1.36.579
GT3pole:1.38.934

basicly the actual gt1 should be slowered of about 2 seconds and the gt3 cars have to gain about 2 seconds of performance.... then add 2009specs gt2.....

[Jameson]

GT1s are still clearly ahead of the GT3 cars, but I don't get it what does it matter?

This Z4 project of VDS and any other like that is for these private teams to upgrade the current GT3 cars to GT1 spec. This leads to these cars becoming GT1 cars, so there's no point of speculating about the difference between these two classes.

The BoP is then another story and I really hope it will be done well again next year, as they did this year in GT1, and not like in GT3, which has been nothing short of a disaster.

[TheNewBob]

Originally Posted by alexkiller8

basicly the actual gt1 should be slowered of about 2 seconds and the gt3 cars have to gain about 2 seconds of performance.... then add 2009specs gt2.....

...why?

GT1 cars have already been heavily slowed down. We know that current GT3 cars have quite a lot of restrictions on them, so why not raise the level of the GT3 performance? This is assuming that the GT3 cars that will be in the WC will not be the same as the normal GT3 cars.

I also find it difficult to believe that anyone is going to want to run a 2009-spec GT2 car, as they're all in the process of being phased out (although unlikely as it is, I'd enjoy seeing the Maserati-engined Vertigo again - it had FIA GT2 homologation for '09, didn't it?)

[alexkiller8]

mmm i think that in next year will be used a lot of old f430 gtc and 997 GT3 RSR... i don't think that the 2009 corvette gt2 will be sold to private teams, maybe hexis team will run a vantage gt2

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by alexkiller8

mmm i think that in next year will be used a lot of old f430 gtc and 997 GT3 RSR...

I don't, they wouldn't be competitive!

There'll be plenty of current GT1 and GT3 cars to choose from that will do the job.

[Purist]

Well, a team that is familiar with the GT2 car, but not the GT3 or GT1, might choose to run the GT2.

[MitchZ06]

All it takes is modifying the cars to be quasi-GT1 cars. Carbon brakes, flat floor, lowered ride, bigger restrictors, etc will make the GT2 and GT3 cars a whole bunch faster and comparable to current GT1 cars.

[alexkiller8]

there is to say that GT3 cars have all kind of electronic helps too, without these surely will be still slower.

[MitchZ06]

Good to see we have strong minded people on this forum....

[joeb]

Originally Posted by Purist

Well, a team that is familiar with the GT2 car, but not the GT3 or GT1, might choose to run the GT2.

I agree, there must have been interest by somebody in running a 2009 GT2 car or else the regs wouldn't have included that possibility.

[I Rosputnik]

Is it tomorrow if we find out what's happening with this series?

[Marcel ten Caat]

There is a press conference at Spa-Francorchamps this weekend...but not tomorrow.

[chunterer]

God let's hope there's something concrete in the way of confirmed entrants. I know we won't get much news until the winter but some solid intent would be welcome.

[MitchZ06]

Ratel will announce they will artificially wet the tracks ala Bernie and F1 to increase the spectacle and repair bills.

[Speed-King]

From Racecar Engineering via Twitter

Is the GT1 World Championship no more? hearing doom and gloom rumours

When is Ratel's annual press conference? Today or tomorrow?

[I Rosputnik]

I think it be a shame to lose this series. I like the idea of the series, a sprint series for GT cars for those who aren't overally keen on WEC's long races or the WTCC's pace. I think what could kill this is a lack of forsight. While GT1 have that aggressiveness that LMGT's lack, and have wonderful engine notes, I am afraid that with sportscars going to LMGT or GT3 it would of made more sense going to those regulations. While I will not go into the issues of balancing the cars, I think the racing that it produces -when they are not smashing into each other - is fantastic.

Do I think the SRO should of gone with the sprint format - Yes, but maybe a little longer.

Do I think the SRO was right to carry on with GT1 - No, but whether or not Ratel realised that GT1 was going to be thrown out by the ACO is a different story.

And do I think the sport could of worked as a customer based series - Yes, but then again it looks like the WTCC is going in that direction as well.

Who knows, maybe we might see someone, I don't know who, use the forthcoming GT/Touring hybrid rules of the DTM and make something similar.

[alexkiller8]

next year i think will be a transition year; maybe will still run some GT1 cars (meanwhile news from lambda, matech went in bankrupt and there aren't spare parts anymore, the MVDS team itself is through bmw now; reiter doesn't care anymore about murcielago R-SV and also for this car the spare parts are rare; s7r, dbr9, c6r and mc12 will not be elegible anymore, so only nissan with factory/nismo support can run other GT1 cars, but i think teams will switch for next GT-R GT3) but from 2013 i'm pretty sure that enhanced GT3 cars will become the new GT1 cars... it's just history that repeats.... in late '90 GT1 class was canceled, the GT2 class then became GT class and then after the split, GTS and GT class were created... until the actual GT1 cars.

[geeteeone]

Originally Posted by joeb

I agree, there must have been interest by somebody in running a 2009 GT2 car or else the regs wouldn't have included that possibility.

I think this is to do with weight. In 2009, the GT2 class regulations specified a lower minimum weight than the current GTE weight limit. I would imagine that current GTE cars, being built to the higher weight limit wouldn't be as easy to balance with the GT1 and GT3 cars.

[I Rosputnik]

It looks like meeting is going to be tomorrow.

I wonder what tracks will be on the calendar and how many entries there will be.

[mirkob]

7 Teams confirmed:
Young Driver AMR (Aston Martin)
WRT (Audi)
Vita4One (Ferrari)
Marc VDS Racing Team (BMW)
Belgian Racing (Ford)
All Inkl (Lamborghini)
JRM (Nissan)

EI

[I Rosputnik]

From the website.

Australasia, North America and Russia... That's a good start! What will happen to Sumo then? I guess the JRM cars will have Sumo Power logo's on the sides.

[JAG]

So the rumoured AF Corsa Ferrari's are out.

As for the potential calender, discussions are one thing, confirming rounds is another.

[Deleted]

There was a mention on endurance-info that the homologation of grandfathered DBR9 and C6.R could be extended for next year as well. Not sure who'd race vettes but YD might wanna stick with heir old trusty astons. Not that it matters whether they run with DB9s or Vantages, BoP will take care of results

[Purist]

It matters if you like the V12, at least until there's a racing version of the V12 Vantage.