[FIA GT] '10 GT1 WC Round 1 • Abu Dhabi • April 16th-17th

[Purist]

Who says Ferrari has to build a 599 GT1 themselves, SA?

One of the express points of the new GT1 series is to keep works efforts out. A manufacturer can build the cars, but so can a "boutique builder", as Fogel put it. And then, the cars are run by privateer teams. i see no reason why Viaphone couldn't work something out with Michelotto to build the 599s independent of the factory.

BTW, Maserati isn't under Ferrari anymore, it's now under Alfa Romeo.

[Samoan Attorney]

Originally Posted by Purist

Who says Ferrari has to build a 599 GT1 themselves, SA?

One of the express points of the new GT1 series is to keep works efforts out. A manufacturer can build the cars, but so can a "boutique builder", as Fogel put it. And then, the cars are run by privateer teams. i see no reason why Viaphone couldn't work something out with Michelotto to build the 599s independent of the factory.

BTW, Maserati isn't under Ferrari anymore, it's now under Alfa Romeo.

I am well aware that Maserati is now part of a group involving Alfa Romeo but both companies still enjoy a close relationship, sharing dealerships and supply networks.

The problem with the idea of "boutique builders" as you describe them is money, as it is for the whole concept. Who will fund this project and where will the markets outside of the GT1 World Championship be? Stephane is quoted as wanting ten brands each fielding two cars, so covering the development costs will be the key question. Especially if the ACO market is not an option. That also rules out the US market, assuming the ALMS continues on its current course.

Michelotto would not risk their relationship with Ferrari on such a matter. Some things in Italy never change.

As I wrote in my post, the news from Sebring was that the exisiting GT2 manufacturers would not support GT1. Consider just the practical matter of getting a 599, it would be difficult, to say the least, if Ferrari decides no GT1. It can be done as Freddy Dohr and ProDrive proved with the 550 Maranello but several others tried and did not make a success.

I appreciate the aims of both parties but in my experience you follow the money.

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by Purist

Who says Ferrari has to build a 599 GT1 themselves, SA?

One of the express points of the new GT1 series is to keep works efforts out. A manufacturer can build the cars, but so can a "boutique builder", as Fogel put it. And then, the cars are run by privateer teams. i see no reason why Viaphone couldn't work something out with Michelotto to build the 599s independent of the factory.

BTW, Maserati isn't under Ferrari anymore, it's now under Alfa Romeo.

Who owns Alfa ?

[Samoan Attorney]

Originally Posted by The Badger

Who owns Alfa ?

Who owns Ferrari?

[Fogelhund]

Originally Posted by Samoan Attorney

As I wrote in my post, the news from Sebring was that the exisiting GT2 manufacturers would not support GT1. Consider just the practical matter of getting a 599, it would be difficult, to say the least, if Ferrari decides no GT1. It can be done as Freddy Dohr and ProDrive proved with the 550 Maranello but several others tried and did not make a success.

Of course Prodrive built 10+ 550's, creating some level of economy of scale. Building 2-4 cars just won't do that for you. How many teams can afford to pay a Boutique builder some $4 million plus, just to build them two cars?

[Samoan Attorney]

Originally Posted by Fogelhund

Of course Prodrive built 10+ 550's, creating some level of economy of scale. Building 2-4 cars just won't do that for you. How many teams can afford to pay a Boutique builder some $4 million plus, just to build them two cars?

My point exactly.

[KingThomas]

What about the weird pointsystem? The regulations are telling that a driver can get 10 point for a mainrace win, and 3 point for a win in the quali-race. Grosjean has 31..

http://www.gt1world.com/standings/drivers

http://www.gt1world.com/about/

[Dead-Eye]

I believe they made a rather late decision to adopt a system based on the new F1 one. Seems like the website wasn't updated yet.

[rich07]

Originally Posted by The Badger

How about Vitaphone running a Maseratti P1 car instead ?

Lola-Maserati? But building one from the ground up would cost more then any 599 GT1 would, Vitaphone have got good funding but would it be enough to develop a 599 remains to be seen.

[Purist]

At present, if you sell each team their two cars, plus a spare for each, that's SIX full cars, but the real bank saver is spares/replacement parts.

Alfa Romeo, Maserati, and Ferrari are all part of the Fiat Group.

You could say that the upside of the "boutique builders" is that they can't spend as much to develop and build the cars, which means they can be sold for less, and are hence more affordable to teams. Also, you do NOT have the "A" equipment being reserved for the factory, and considerably less developed "B" equipment being the only cars that get sold to privateers. The one exception to this that I can see might be the Ford GTs that Marc VDS has. Do we know if those are the latest spec cars? It's interesting, because, I think, last year the VDS car was actually finishing better than the Matech car in at least some of the FIA GT rounds.

I think the money can start to make more sense when a manufacturer sees their car in a World Championship, and can pump some sponsor dollars that way, but spend a heck of a lot less than they would if they had to put together the cars themselves.

[rich07]

Well I think the only manufacturer that hasnt put some sort of financial backing into the GT1 cars could be Ford and possibly Lamborghini. The other four cars have been built by the manufacturers directly (Nissan and Maserati) or by someone else in conjunction with the manufacturer (Prodrive, Pratt + Miller) with some money involved.

If Vitaphone did field a 599 then we could see as many as four cars on the grid next year with Triple H being a Vitaphone B team and all that.....

[HORNDAWG]

Originally Posted by rich07

Well I think the only manufacturer that hasnt put some sort of financial backing into the GT1 cars could be Ford and possibly Lamborghini. The other four cars have been built by the manufacturers directly (Nissan and Maserati) or by someone else in conjunction with the manufacturer (Prodrive, Pratt + Miller) with some money involved.

If Vitaphone did field a 599 then we could see as many as four cars on the grid next year with Triple H being a Vitaphone B team and all that.....

Huh, what? Them are some pretty rose colored glasses as concerns the current MC12, C6.R and DBR9 GT-1s!!!





L.P.

[Matt Hunter]

I was pleasantly suprised by the GTWC. The format for the races seems to work well and the races were close enough. Certainly held the attention! The addition of a pretty good feed on the official website helped loads and meant I could ACTUALLY enjoy the race live
It'll be interesting to see what happens at Silverstone, but the cars seemed fairly equal apart form the GTR which seemed to be overly restrained. For a car that was runnin last year under development I'd have hoped for more.

[Samoan Attorney]

Originally Posted by rich07

Well I think the only manufacturer that hasnt put some sort of financial backing into the GT1 cars could be Ford and possibly Lamborghini. The other four cars have been built by the manufacturers directly (Nissan and Maserati) or by someone else in conjunction with the manufacturer (Prodrive, Pratt + Miller) with some money involved.

If Vitaphone did field a 599 then we could see as many as four cars on the grid next year with Triple H being a Vitaphone B team and all that.....

There has been no financial backing for the new GT1 cars except from Nissan. Martin Bartek put his own money up to develop the Ford GT. All the other cars are based on the pre-existing GT1 models. In the current financial climate and with sales well down on 2002-2007 levels there will be nothing on offer from Maserati, Aston Martin and Lamborghini. Corvette is progressing with their GT2 project, so that is another alley closed.
This problem is one of the underlying weaknesses of the GT1 Championship.

[Fogelhund]

Originally Posted by Samoan Attorney

There has been no financial backing for the new GT1 cars except from Nissan.

Let me summarize this situation, in my opinion, and see how close to being correct I am. Nissan decides they want to go racing in Europe, with one of the goals being winning GT1 at LM. They don't wish to put the funds into developing a new engine, so they borrow their old Super GT engine as the starting point. The car isn't designed centrally, rather by committee, each without knowing what the other is doing. The first "factory backed" team folds, taking a pile of NISMO money with it. A second "factory backed" team is created sucking up the balance of the NISMO budget allocated to the program, meaning they can't "afford" to go to LM, and are too late to submit an entry anyway. Nobody enters the LMS, meaning GT1 will likely be killed off in the future for LM, meaning one of NISMO's goals with the program is unattainable. Then the FIA blows the equivalency formula in the first race, leaving the only paid manufacturer looking slow and incompetent.

Things look great don't they? The FIA NEEDS Nissan to win both championships.

...and having said that, I do think the first race weekend was entertaining, and the Streaming great.

[Samoan Attorney]

Originally Posted by Fogelhund

Let me summarize this situation, in my opinion, and see how close to being correct I am. Nissan decides they want to go racing in Europe, with one of the goals being winning GT1 at LM. They don't wish to put the funds into developing a new engine, so they borrow their old Super GT engine as the starting point. The car isn't designed centrally, rather by committee, each without knowing what the other is doing. The first "factory backed" team folds, taking a pile of NISMO money with it. A second "factory backed" team is created sucking up the balance of the NISMO budget allocated to the program, meaning they can't "afford" to go to LM, and are too late to submit an entry anyway. Nobody enters the LMS, meaning GT1 will likely be killed off in the future for LM, meaning one of NISMO's goals with the program is unattainable. Then the FIA blows the equivalency formula in the first race, leaving the only paid manufacturer looking slow and incompetent.

Things look great don't they? The FIA NEEDS Nissan to win both championships.

...and having said that, I do think the first race weekend was entertaining, and the Streaming great.

Your interpretation is pretty much on the money............I would say. The manufacturers wanted a GT2 solution and thought that back in 2008 they were united on that course, then Nissan brings out the GT1 car last year. That opened a can of worms and caused all manner of problems for the factories. How do the guys from Corvette explain why the factory GT2 cars are slower that old customer GT1 cars to the executives who have little or no interest in motorsport and are beancounters to a man? Why have we spent all that money when we are slower than the old cars?

As to 2010 Le Mans and Nissan...........I understand that the problems with transmission and rear end overheating last season meant that they did not think the car was ready. Sumo are properly funded so their non-participation was not a financial issue. The NISMO/Sumo deal was signed in time for an entry for LM24, I cannot believe that the ACO would have turned them away. Now that neither Nissan nor Maserati have entered the 2010 race, it must make the class's future for 2011 questionable.

I heard that Nissan played a straight bat when the Balance of Performance tests were being made, others appear to have been less public spirited so with ride heights and other marginal adjustments being not optimally set..........no evidence for this story as I was not there.

Streaming was good, only saw the first race.

Relieved that I did not make the trip, one team have been given a May 2nd flight home date.............we should be at Silverstone for the second event that weekend. The other rumour is that the Hotels are running out of beer.......

The cars are to be flown to Spain as I understand it and then transported to Silverstone.

But all of this can change in a minute.

[tblincoe]

Originally Posted by KingThomas

What about the weird pointsystem? The regulations are telling that a driver can get 10 point for a mainrace win, and 3 point for a win in the quali-race. Grosjean has 31..

http://www.gt1world.com/standings/drivers

http://www.gt1world.com/about/

Just came across this while I was searching for an answer to the same question:

http://www.gt1world.com/news/article...points-system-

Hope that helps!

[lemansfan]

http://s1.directupload.net/file/d/2137/h4sjhlrc_jpg


Read somewhere that the Marc VDS GT is a Customer Car from Matech .

Maybe it is a ex GT3 with GT1 Specifications .Picture is from Zolder last Year . If anybody can make Pictures in Silverstone maybe we can see a Difference ??

[KA]

Originally Posted by Samoan Attorney

I heard that Nissan played a straight bat when the Balance of Performance tests were being made, others appear to have been less public spirited so with ride heights and other marginal adjustments being not optimally set..........no evidence for this story as I was not there.

Autosport are suggesting the same- they apparently 'understand' that the Ford was turning laptimes in the races 2-3 seconds a lap quicker than it had in the equalisation test....
Apparently, Frentzen only did a couple of laps in some of the cars during the test, rather than the 10-15 laps planned for each car. The report claims that Nissan, amongst others, feel it wasn't undertaken in a fair manner...

[rich07]

What surprises me is that Nissan didnt present their car like everyone else did, I'm not saying its cheating-more like bending the rules, I was under the impression that everyone did it to get the best advantage.

[Birddog07]

Just watched race 1. Seemed a pretty good start to the championship. I'd really like a 2h race (or even 3) with refueling, but for costs I think the current format is very good (and still exciting), plus TV broadcasters have more freedom I think and if they wish could show weekend highlights with the full race 2 (championship race) and a 1 1/2 TV segment. I like the Yas Circuit and the cars looked and sounded great (well, the Nissans sounded wierd with the V8 American grunt sound). I think the chicane before the turn 7 hairpin could maybe be straightlined next time for some potential overtaking. We'll have to see how the series develops over the years, but in my eyes it has potential. Expand the calendar for next year alittle and get some more cars (Lexus LFA, Porsche Carrera GT, new Lotus Esprit, Toyota FT-86, McLaren MP4-12C, Viper, so much potential).

We'll see what happens. I think this could help in reviving GT1 as top class GT racing, but for that to happen, I think it is gonna have to be manufactuer (or backed) teams with pro drivers. Development can be frozen for cost cutting and the cars balanced like they are currently (we'll see how well they get balanced out). GT3 cars are so variative and close to GT2 performance (and price), that I think they should just be the new pro-am GT2. Am GT4 to become the new GT3, how it should have been from the start.

Anyways, I'm off to watch race 2.