Sports car racing’s most influential governing bodies, FIA and ACO, have announced plans to introduce a single, lower-cost set of GT regulations in 2015.
Federation Internationale de l‘Automobile and Auto Club l’Oueste, which control most auto racing around the world and the various Le Mans series, will form a working group in November to devise regulations for a new GT class (racing cars based on street-legal sports cars) which should hit the track three years from now.
GT racing is currently divided into GTE, with very strict regulations, and GT3, a cheaper alternative with more open rules.
GTE is getting expensive. While it flourishes in North America, where manufacturers compete for market share, it languishes in Europe, where the economy is even worse the in the U.S.
GT3 is enormously popular, but the open rules leave too much to interpretation. Manufacturers don’t want to get too involved when success could be decided by race officials rather than racing.
ACO sporting manager Vincent Beaumesnil told Autosport on Oct. 13, “The GT manufacturers support the GTE regulations, but it is clear at the same time that GT3 is a great success. It has been decided together by the FIA to establish a working group with all the manufacturers involved in GT racing to create a single category worldwide.
“We have three main targets: to keep the technical credibility of GTE; to achieve the reduced costs of GT3; and to allow the manufacturers to develop one car rather than the two that they have to today.”
