GT2 - battle lines drawn - the ACO declares war............

[Bentley03]

DAILY SPORTSCAR describe it as 'the battle for hearts and minds'.................

This is the ACO's statement regarding the future of GT2 in ACO regs racing:

The LM-GT2 is a category of the future for endurance racing
Wednesday 10 March 2010 - 11h08
The Automobile Club de l’Ouest specifies that for the “24 Heures du Mans” and the Le Mans Series (in Europe, in the USA and in Asia), the LM-GT2 category, currently expanding rapidly, has a wonderful future beckoning for the coming years.

Indeed, the ACO had already taken 3 important decisions in 2009 concerning the future of the category:

• By listening to, and consulting with all the constructors of GT2, the ACO had supported their request to the FIA to ‘freeze’ the 2009 rules for 2010 and 2011.

• Within an objective of safety and balance of performances with the other categories (LMP and GT), the ACO had also decided to lower the performances of the LM-GT2s. This decision has made it possible to appreciably improve the reliability of the GT2s in the Le Mans races as well as in the “24 Heures” race.

• At the same time, the ACO also decided to open the LM-GT2s to new makes which were making the request to race in this category, in order to give this category a wider sports dimension. Out of the 26 requests that the ACO received in GT2 for the 2010 “24 Heures” in February, we have thus been able to count 7 different makes, including 3 new ones (BMW, Jaguar and Corvette).

• The stability of its rules, the opening to projects coming from different manufacturers, and the fact of mastering the level of performance of the cars make it possible today for the LM-GT2 category to group together exceptional line-ups where private and official competitors fight on equal terms for victory.

The ACO believes that the future will allow an even more important expansion of this GT category, notably with the arrival of new technologies on the ‘road’ versions of the manufacturers.


Sounds like a declaration of all out war on the FIA. The battle for supremacy in GT racing begins...........

[HORNDAWG]

It seems from that statement that this will indeed be the last year of GT-1 (sorta) as we know it, running in the ACO.




L.P.

[joeb]

Putting the GT-2's as the star of the GT class will not bother me one bit!

[Fogelhund]

Is too wonder if this is intended as a shot to Ratel, and eliminating his GT1 from ACO's future?

[prototype]

Me either, but reading that statement I saw nothing that indicates GT1 is going away. (But I wish it would)

[ascarracinguk]

i dont see why gt1 and aco cant run in seperate lines....just treat it as daytona prototypes and the ALMS

[Speed-King]

Maybe one should also look at this from another perspective: The end of the FIA-series poses a thread to the health of GT2 at large and the ACO is trying to reassource GT2 teams and manufacturers of the importance of the class.

After all, the market for GT2-cars has been shrinking for a while with most national series abandoning it, and now it is further collapsing with the end of the FIA-series. Less cars to sell means less money for the for profit programmes of Porsche and Ferrari and this will become a problem especially with the arrival of the full on factory teams.

[pitviper]

If they are going to split further away from the FIA, then they need to drop the "2" from GT2... having a GT2 without a GT1 is just silly. It will be very interesting to see how the FIA GT1 cars do at LeMans this year...

pit

[Dead-Eye]

Originally Posted by Bentley03

• Within an objective of safety and balance of performances with the other categories (LMP and GT), the ACO had also decided to lower the performances of the LM-GT2s.

That doesn't sound like GT1 is going away to me.

[HORNDAWG]

Shots fired! This seems to be the battle for GT supremacy. GT-2 is healthy in ALMS, LMS, GT-Open and still in several National Championships. In the ALMS GTC looks as if it will be expanded somewhat towards GT-3. Also from this statement several other mfgs. seem interested in GT-2, maybe some of those would be the leading edge GT-3s (?). If so, integration of those to GT-2 could/would ease the margin between the 2 classes, thus stabilizing both and maybe make them the ACO GT classes.





L.P.

[JAG]

I could see Audi and Mclaren entering GT2.

It would then just be a case of keeping costs in check.

[Dead-Eye]

Originally Posted by Dead-Eye

That doesn't sound like GT1 is going away to me.

Disregard this post, I misread.

[The Badger]

I reckon its good news .....

[dj choc ice]

The ACO have drawn first blood then, wonder how Ratel and the SRO will respond to this, could get ugly. But i am in agreeance with the ACO more than the SRO, Ratel made his bed with the GT2 championship so he can lie in it quite frankly.

[old man]

The problem with the FIA GT2 European Championship does not lie with the FIA as such, it is SRO that dropped the ball in the push for a World Championship series that could have been for either GT1 or GT2.

The Sales and Marketing people at all the manufacturers would like to claim to be the "World Champions" but equally love to advertise that they are the winners of LM which at the moment carries more prestige within their market. As things stand we have too much fragmentation and the only thing that binds GT racing together is the strength of the LM24 and the satelite series that guarantee an entry to what is in effect the "final" for the ACO based series each year.

In the past few seasons the winners of the FIA series in each class were also guaranteed an entry to the LM24, will this still apply to the FIA World Championship? One could argue that this would, in effect, show that winning that series only qualifies a team to enter the biggest race of all. On the other hand for the ACO not to invite the winners to the 24 would further split the two camps and if the ACO then dropped GT1 as a class the GT1 WC would become isolated and have to stand or fall on its own.

The proposal built into the ACO statement that new technologies have a place in GT2 is also significant given the new Porsche and others.

SRO can only respond by making a major success of its new championship and it is going to be interesting to see how this develops.

Does anyone know what the mandate is from the FIA to SRO to run "their" championships? Does it work like the deal with FOM for the FIA F1 World Championship and how does it compare with the FIA World Rally Championship or the WTCC?