The Best 2005 GT1 Car? It is Corvette by my calculations….

[David]

..and here are the results of those calculations:

2005 GT1 World Championship - by David’s Reckoning

1 Chevrolet 189
2 Ferrari 183
3 Maserati 180
4 Saleen 121
5 Aston Martin 89
6. Lister 57
7 Chrysler 35
8 Lamborghini 18
9 Porsche 16

Race-by-race points are calculated on my web site - click here.

Apparently I am not the only person that misses the definitive GT Championships of years gone by. I see regular discussions on various boards about a single GT Championship. I am pragmatic enough to realize that motor sport as entertainment leads to as many racing series as sponsors will support so a single championship may never happen.

I decided, therefore, to create my own 2005 World Grand Touring Championship using the following method:

- The Championship is for GT1 or equivalent
- Included Series: ALMS, FIA GT, LMES, Le Mans 24 hr
- Points are awarded based on number of cars listed in final results
-- e.g. If 15 GT1 cars are listed in the final results, the winner gets 15 points
- All cars listed in final results are considered for points
- Only the best finishing car scores points for the manufacturer

Notes:
- The idea of which I am the most proud is the awarding of points based on the number of cars in the class. Beating 5 GT1 cars in an ALMS race does not reward the winner like beating 15 cars in an FIA GT race.
- Also, although only the best finishing car gets points, a 1-2-3 sweep by a make excludes the other makes from 2nd and 3rd place points.
- No extra points are awarded for winning. (Yes, I realize most sanctioning bodies reward the winner with extra points based on the emotional statement that second place is the first loser. To my engineer’s mind, first place is just the car that came in one place better than second – I don’t do emotional points.
- I wanted to include the Japanese SuperGT Series but there is so little overlap in cars and rules, I did not include them this year.
- To those folks who know where my sentiments lie; no, I did not predetermine a method to assure a Corvette win. As a matter of fact, I first came up with this scoring idea in 2004 just to see how badly Corvette was getting beat on a world scale. It was so bad I never completed the chart for 2004.

And the most amazing thing about it all? By any scoring method I am sure Corvette did very well on the world GT stage but, GM is so focused on their own team (click here), they will never publicly acknowledge what other teams are helping them do worldwide. Sad.


The above is, heaven forbid, last year's car! (Winning, of course, this year's FIA GT race in China.)

All that being said, as a Corvette owner I am very proud of what Chevrolet accomplished on a global scale plus, it was a lot of fun doing the sums. It was exciting, too, since it was a real nail biter down to the last race!


Above - My obviously outdated ride.

Comments? Has anyone else ever undertaken a project of this type? What results did you get?

[FIRE]

Sounds logical, but maybe you have to make a difference between Ferrari 550 / 575 and Chevrolet C5R / C6R?

[Audi R8R]

Also, isn't including Le Mans slightly biased, seeing as how there wasn't a Maserati or Saleen racing there, so that's an unfair points gain.

[David]

Originally Posted by FIRE

Sounds logical, but maybe you have to make a difference between Ferrari 550 / 575 and Chevrolet C5R / C6R?

I considered classifying seperate models but decided on a simpler "Marque" championship; ie "Chevrolet" rather than C5-R and C6.R individually. That, of course, brings up the question of Ferrari and Maserati being the same manufacturer but, the cars are entirely different.

[David]

Originally Posted by Audi R8R

Also, isn't including Le Mans slightly biased, seeing as how there wasn't a Maserati or Saleen racing there, so that's an unfair points gain.

Yes, that is a problem, but actually, Corvette and Maserati didn't race LMES, Aston was only part time in ALMS and other such gaps also existed. Since the rules for each series differ somewhat, I chose to consider all the major events for GT1 cars even though some cars were excluded by rules or economics. Le Mans is certainly seems to fall into the category of a "major GT1 race".

[TheNewBob]

LMES's 5 races to ALMS's 10... that entirely fair...?

[BSchneiderFan]

My God, I bet David's wishing he'd never bothered now!

[David]

Originally Posted by TheNewBob

LMES's 5 races to ALMS's 10... that entirely fair...?

Not entirely, what do you suggest?

[David]

Originally Posted by BSchneiderFan

My God, I bet David's wishing he'd never bothered now!

Well, actually, I am glad to have comments.

I plan to do this again in 2006 and would like to make it as meaningful as possible. It can never be completely "fair".

[TWK]

Originally Posted by TheNewBob

LMES's 5 races to ALMS's 10... that entirely fair...?

Sure it's fair. The races in question are open to everyone. They choose. So if you want to have a "great race car," you race it. If you don't the one that raced (and won) should go down as the "greater race car."

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by David

Not entirely, what do you suggest?

Aren't ALMS races around 3 hours long?
Take LMES results after 3 hours and finish, at the end ALMS and LMES have both 10 results.

[David]

Originally Posted by FIRE

Aren't ALMS races around 3 hours long?
Take LMES results after 3 hours and finish, at the end ALMS and LMES have both 10 results.

...and break Le Mans into 8 different segments?

I apparently forgot to mention that simplicity is one of the goals also.

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by David

...and break Le Mans into 8 different segments?

Don't know. It's difficult to get a fair championship on this way. For example not every team is allowed to race at Le Mans.

But I like your idea David.

[Silk Cut Jaguar]

Any system like this is always going to be unfair on some level, but looking at how David distributed the points I'd say this is about as conclusive as we'll get without a genuine world GT series.

Maybe excluding Le Mans would balance things out as that is an exclusive event, whereas anybody can enter FIA GT, LMES or ALMS.

[JAG]

I think what this shows is that if Aston do not step up and compete in a full 2006 ALMS season, Corvette should run in GT2 or build an LMP.

[TWK]

Originally Posted by FIRE

Don't know. It's difficult to get a fair championship on this way. For example not every team is allowed to race at Le Mans.

But I like your idea David.

I'll suggest that any car not invited to race at Le Mans is quite irrelevent in a determination of "the best racing sports car."

[TheNewBob]

Originally Posted by TWK

I'll suggest that any car not invited to race at Le Mans is quite irrelevent in a determination of "the best racing sports car."

Really? Makes me think back to LNT and Zytek not going to Le Mans when they would have stood very good chances of getting very good results in their respective classes - particularly in 2005 I think pretty much everyone would agree their cars were battling against the best in their classes.

I know this is a thread about GT1, but was making examples to a particular point.

I think if you have this sort of experiment about cars in particular championships rather than right across the whole board then it would be a lot more accurate.

From those findings you could do a few bits of maths and find some overall percentages and averages and effiencies, though. Wild example being if one car wins 2 out of 4 races in one series, and a different car wins 4 out of 8 in another, you can argue about which car is best but both would have won 50% of the races entered.

If it was all mixed in together then the car that won 4 out of 8 races might be seen as having an unfair advantage of getting 4 more races simply because of the championship they decided to enter - the team with the car which won 2 out of 4 might not have been able to attend the other championships for reasons of money or location or whatever. Is it really right to fault teams and cars for doing that?

It could go a whole lot deeper than this too when you have to think about race lengths, competition numbers, competition strengths etc...

[Fogelhund]

Originally Posted by TheNewBob

Really? Makes me think back to LNT and Zytek not going to Le Mans when they would have stood very good chances of getting very good results in their respective classes - particularly in 2005 I think pretty much everyone would agree their cars were battling against the best in their classes.

Pendantic perhaps, but a very solid point, and I think that the old boy has you there Tom.

Bottom line is that this little "experiment" picked out the number one chassis to run in 2005.

If one did a comparitive chassis vs. chassis comparison, and ignored the number of races competed, then the results would likely look like. Corvette C6.R, Aston DBR9, Maserati MC12, Ferrari 550, Corvette C5R, Ferrari 575, Saleen S7R, Lister, Viper.

[TheNewBob]

hmmm agreed - could go into any detail you want but all in all I guess it's not likely anybody's built a C6.R-beater just yet... Aston Martin are close, if Maserati built a car to the rules then they would have been close too. But I reckon that unless there's some good developments for 2006, then Corvette will still be on top of things come this time next year, too...

[TWK]

I'll give you the point that either one might have achieved "a very good finish at Le Mans," but that isn't really spot-on the point IMHO. The real point is not the "perfection of the Le Mans invite," but whether is is likely to have left out a "car of the year." Am I to conclude from the above that the TVR is to be considered a candidate for the "greatest GT2 car of the year"? Or even Zytek? Winning percentage if you only enter four races in a year, so you can be the "greatest race car"?

[TheNewBob]

What decides a "car of the year"? Just race results? Dominance? Improvement from the previous season? Who drives it? Look at how well Bouchut could have done in a Ferrari 550 this year had he been given some great professional team mates...

For me, LNT's T400r was one of the GT2 cars of the year. Fantastic to watch, improved so much on the 2004-season TVR's, pace was way ahead of the Peninsula Racesport car, and regularly up with the front runners in it's class. That said, the subject in this thread seems to be going very much on numbers, so you'd have to say from FIA GT and ALMS results alone that the 996 GT3-RSR wouldn't look like being beaten.

[Bramzel]

Originally Posted by TheNewBob

For me, LNT's T400r was one of the GT2 cars of the year. Fantastic to watch, improved so much on the 2004-season TVR's, pace was way ahead of the Peninsula Racesport car, and regularly up with the front runners in it's class. That said, the subject in this thread seems to be going very much on numbers, so you'd have to say from FIA GT and ALMS results alone that the 996 GT3-RSR wouldn't look like being beaten.

Imho the TVR's were a little bit dissapointing this year, I was hoping for more improvement than this. My GT2 winner for 2005 is the Spyker. From absolute zero (remember everbody screaming at how it didn't belong on a racetrack, that it was dangerous to have it on the track) to podium-material in one season, that's impressive. Looking forward to their 2006 effort.

In GT1 the best imho was the Corvette. The Aston tried hard, got close, but the Vette just did it again. Faster, more reliable, rocksolid.

[TheNewBob]

I've never seen Spyker race - was hoping to see them at Silverstone for the LMES round but it didn't happen. But, true, granted, I gotta say their rise upwards is very impressive.

I guess I'm a little biased towards TVR when it comes to GT2. However, the TVR pace internationally in 2004 (like Le Mans and FIA GT Donington) was pretty poor. Then they come out at Spa this year and win, in fairly horrible conditions too. Put a big smile on my face, that did.

Still, there's emotion plastered all over that, and given that this thread has the word "calculations" in the title, I'm pretty sure emotion was never meant to be involved one bit!

[TWK]

Huh? The thread started with a post about selecting the "best," based on results! Now we're nominating TVR and Spyker? Why? How on GGE? Look, I'm a big fan of the BMW M3 GTR. It raced in two 24 hour races, and won one. That must be the best car of the year, right?

[TheNewBob]

I believe it's called wondering off-topic. Sorry guys, think I've led this one adrift...