FIA GT World Championship 2012

[GregoryDG]

- Mikhail Aleshin is the 2010 Formula Renault 3.5 champion
- Laurens Vanthoor is the 2009 German F3 champion
- Franscesco Castellaci is the 2011 FIAGT3 champion
- Mike Parisy is the 2004 Formula France and 2009 FFSA GT champion
- Frank Kechele won the 2007 Formula Renault NEC, beating Valtteri Bottas
- Albert von Thurn und Taxis and Peter Kox are the 2010 ADAC GT Masters champions
- Stef Dusseldorp won the GT1 Championship Race in Abu Dhabi in 2011.

Should I continue? Tomas Enge, Andy Soucek, Alvaro Parente, Fred Mako, Michael Bartels, Marc Basseng, Oliver Jarvis, Frank Stippler, Stéphane Ortelli, Antonio Pizzonia etc...

I think you should first find out who these drivers really are and what they have achieved. Now you are just naming the ones you don't know (and spelling 50% of them incorrect...)

[urdragon]

In addition everything built in less than 2 months,with most of the GT pro drivers signed for the WEC, if there wasn't the WEC (And nissan hadn't left) the FIA GT would have got the best drivers of her history.

And just wait for all inkl and Vita4one..

[ChinaRacing]

guys, I am very curious about this, as I tried to find GT1 news around, only WEC and other racing series have separate section, only GT1 in GT section or even no news at all?

[Acid09]

Originally Posted by courageous

I take it most of the teams are soup kitchen deals to avoid king Rat having egg on his face.

According to John Dagys on Twitter, Ratel even admitted to Autosport that the latest three teams that joined the championship have been "engineered" by him.

Why is nobody in the media calling this series on their bull****? It's a complete joke, starting with the name that tries to pass off the cars as something they aren't to questionable track choices and a largely mediocre driver field.

I guess Ratel would rather go broke than end this nonsense an admit that his world championship and the GT1 rules have been nothing but a huge failure that is rightfully ignored by the media.

[geeteeone]

I've been the biggest supporter of Ratel and his vision for FIA GT over the years, but even I have to admit that the 2012 series looks like being a **** poor representation of a World Championship.

I actually liked the original concept back in 2010, but the ACO canning GT1 cars killed any commercial viability for the car builders. This year's attempt at saving face doesn't excite me at all - I can't see the point in FIA 'GT1' and GT3 both existing.

It looks like the Blancpain series will be where the proper action is in SRO land now.

[Nic_O]

I'm ok with that, it's better than adding new classes every year to fill up the grid. And better than a merge with FIA GT3, in my opinion.
But I hope it's the last time Ratel has to do it.

He also said to Autosport that the cars will become GT3+ next year ( Bigger wings, carbon brakes ) and GT3++ the year after with more power. He hopes that cars will be real GT1s by 2015 and calls them "Monsters".

[alexkiller8]

according that in gt3 class will still be used road derivated engines in future, the only way to obtain more hp is just to increase restrictor size! large displaced and race oriented engines used in GT1 were able to develope also more than 800hp unrestricted, i don't think that gt3 engines can reach those power and an increase of power how much will influence their reability?
BTW I'm sure that actual gt3 engines can reach easily the amount of hp that 2010-2011 gt1 cars could develope (between 570-600) with the right restrictor with "relatively" no reliability problems (i said relatively because it depends by manufacter... ex. mclaren engines have a worrying blow attitude in all situations and set-up). So i don't know why ratel should wait some year if this can be done now! in this way gt1 (!) cars will be much faster than european gt3 cars in races where both class will be in grid.
About gt3+ bodykits if i remember well ratel during summer said that he tried to convince P&M and mercedes to develope a "gt world" bodykit for their models, but the answer was a no no. In my opinion gt3 cars like mp4-12c, lp600+ and sls already develope more downforce than some old model of GT1 car, the problem is that are much heavier.

[TF110]

If he wants it to be the premiere GT championship, he should court manufacturer's into making real GT1's. None of this GT3 stuff is GT1. He should just drop the 1 from the name and call it FIA GT and start fresh.

[Purist]

Except that Ratel has said he does not want full works efforts. Even Nissan went through various teams to run their cars, and so didn't run the GT-R themselves directly. Ratel wants to avoid the real and very rapid collapse that occurred in the late 1990s, when everything went poof all of a sudden between Mercedes, McLaren, and Porsche.

If I'm not mistaken, GT3 cars have more power but less downforce than GT2s. If they can pump the engines up, and give them a bit more aero, you should have some pretty potent GTs. Also, I suspect the GT3s can have a fair bit of weight taken off through removing ballast.

BTW, GTS/GT1 hasn't run at 800hp for a long time. I think British GT in the late '90s was about the only championship that let the cars go that wild. Even before the 2010 GT1 regs, the GTS/GT1 cars never had more than about 700hp.

If I'm just going to be faced with straight GT3 or GT3/GT4 series, I might just sit out until something more blood-curdling comes along in GTs. Also, I very much enjoy have that late season event at Potrero de los Funes, and I don't want to see that go away.

[TF110]

He doesn't have to get 'works' cars. I said for him to court Manufacturers into building real GT1's instead of 'fixing up' GT3's. Make those cars available to the teams. You can't keep going on with cars that are already long in the tooth. Sure the 458 and R8Ultra are pretty new as is the SLS and Z4, but by 2015, those cars aren't so new anymore are they? It'll be just like GT1 from 2010, cars that are almost decade old running around. How is that for a 'World Championship'? I think it's pretty sad.

[alexkiller8]

Originally Posted by Purist

Except that Ratel has said he does not want full works efforts. Even Nissan went through various teams to run their cars, and so didn't run the GT-R themselves directly. Ratel wants to avoid the real and very rapid collapse that occurred in the late 1990s, when everything went poof all of a sudden between Mercedes, McLaren, and Porsche.

If I'm not mistaken, GT3 cars have more power but less downforce than GT2s. If they can pump the engines up, and give them a bit more aero, you should have some pretty potent GTs. Also, I suspect the GT3s can have a fair bit of weight taken off through removing ballast.

BTW, GTS/GT1 hasn't run at 800hp for a long time. I think British GT in the late '90s was about the only championship that let the cars go that wild. Even before the 2010 GT1 regs, the GTS/GT1 cars never had more than about 700hp.

If I'm just going to be faced with straight GT3 or GT3/GT4 series, I might just sit out until something more blood-curdling comes along in GTs. Also, I very much enjoy have that late season event at Potrero de los Funes, and I don't want to see that go away.

a little bit offtopic but gt1 cars never ran with 700hp or 800hp even in the BPR global GT two years, quite the opposite in middle '90 cars like porsche 911 GT1, mclaren f1 gtr could just brush 600hp (the restrictors in GT car usage as we know actualy is a direct consequnce of mclaren f1 entry in GT competitions). The max output ever reached i guess is around 630hp by saleen, aston martin and maserati in the middle of 2000 decade

[Purist]

I'm not necessarily concerned with precisely how old the car is. I mean, if a manufacturer hasn't produced something "better" in my estimation since the existing model came out, keep using the existing model. A new but inferior model (in my eyes anyway) is certainly NOT an improvement.

For instance, I prefer the Saleen S7 over the newer Saleen S5S. The Pagani Zonda wins out over the new Pagani Huayra in my book. The McLaren F1 wins out in both looks and performance specs over the MP4/12C.

Let's face it, 10 years from now, I'm still likely to be fantasizing about the 1993-2005 GT1s, while the memories of most of the current GTs are apt to be collecting dust.

Alex, the Corvette C5.R was quoted at 650hp in 2001, and generally, those estimates on competition cars are considered to be on the conservative side. The Listers and TVRs running in British GT around 1998 were said to be running 800hp. The specs I've seen for the McLaren F1 in competition trim have it running 600-680hp, depending on which series and form the car was in. Also, given that they were running with extra weight, more frontal area, and less aero than the WSCs and early LMP900s, it would be hard for an old GT1 to outrun a "prototype" on any part of a circuit unless the GT1s had some serious horsepower. The physics simply demand it.

[TF110]

What people like is cool, but GT1 is supposed to be relevant, not a throwback series. So outdated cars only add to the problems with image the series has already. How long will it be until the SLS the Z4, R8's and 458's are replaced with something new and they get stale like the 430s, M3's etc.? That's what people complain about.

[alexkiller8]

also in 2010 the c6r gt1 was quoted about 650hp, but was just an indicative value. Then you talked about "before 2010 fia gt in GTS/GT1 class" it has been a mistake of yours to don't specify that you were talking about also of cars that ran in early '90 not mine. Me too know that example the f40 gt had more than 700hp (but a terrible handling).
Coming back in topic, the actual GT1 cars were born to be used by work teams (corvette, aston martin, maserati, RML saleen) just some time later become of private use, but in the actual economic situation also work teams will have financial difficulites to run these kind of cars, think about a private one! i guess that the only cars that now resemble gt1 cars are some gte like 458, vantage gte and 997

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by TF110

He doesn't have to get 'works' cars. I said for him to court Manufacturers into building real GT1's instead of 'fixing up' GT3's.

He tried that for the last three years... no one except Nissan was really interested.

[Purist]

I thought the Ferrari F430, Audi R8, and Lamborghini Gallardo were stale and clinical when they first came out; age had nothing to do with it, and still has nothing to do with it today. I suppose that the point is, from my perspective, if a car is really THAT good, it simply doesn't get stale.

Alex, in FIA GT1 WC trim (2010-11), I never saw any of the cars quoted at above 600hp. All the figures either said 550hp or 600hp. And I'm confused by you calling me out on specificity, when you brought up BPR Global GT yourself in your earlier post.

[alexkiller8]

then you should read better before, now you can do it because the section "cars" has disappeared from gt1world site there corvette was reported with 650, ford with 580 etc.... those indicative values were reported also in all official propagandist documentation (race event's organizers posters, etc...). about BPR i just repeat that the cars that ran in that champ (and later in BRDC and FIA GT) were not so powerfull as you say.

[courageous]

A random fact that always sticks in my mind is the racing McLaren F1 had to run less hp than the road car!

[TF110]

Stale is being used over and over and over again. Look at F1- they build a new car each year. Look at SuperGT, they build a new car each year. DTM update their cars year after year, same with cars in GTE, same with LMP's. FIA GT is supposed to be a world championship with top level cars. There is no top level cars any longer. They're all GT3's given breaks to compete with one another. Aston Martin are using a DBRS9 until the V12 vantage comes along. The R8LMS has been around for how long now? This is supposed to be the world class, but you have local touring cars that are more 'up to date'. The lack of carbon brakes is a cost issue? 90K GTR's have carbon brakes. As do Z06 vettes. This is just one of the many reasons the series is looked at like a joke.

[urdragon]

Originally Posted by TF110

You can't keep going on with cars that are already long in the tooth. Sure the 458 and R8Ultra are pretty new as is the SLS and Z4, but by 2015, those cars aren't so new anymore are they? It'll be just like GT1 from 2010, cars that are almost decade old running around. How is that for a 'World Championship'? I think it's pretty sad.

Well i can't agree exactly with that, does anyone know, how old is the Gallardo GT-3 ? Anyone questioning this year Reiter will be competitive the extremely old gallardo (2005-2006* so, OLDER than the Ford GT), with an example of the performance they achieved at the 24h of Dubai where Peter kox itself claimed the fastest lap.

A car not necesarilly is quite slow cause it's base has 5 years, it's a matter of how you develop it, I myself can assume Ferrari f430 two years ago was not quite Slower than 458, the matter is that when the 458 was homologated non additional research was done to the 430 and also the 458 is a good car,A f430 in hands of the "Low cost" teams like LMP, Sunred an Valmont racing can still deal a quite acceptable performance at the GT world. Cause its obvius nobody thinks all 9 brands will be fighting for the champ, and still is interesting (for me) to be able to see cars like the ford GT running.

*http://www.reiter-engineering.com/ph...eng_v6_NEW.pdf

[TF110]

I didn't say they were slow. I said they're old. How can you call yourself a world class racing championship with cars almost a decade old? Cars that aren't even manufactured any longer? The 458 is much better than the 430. The breaks given to those types of older cars are what keeps them competitive. And the restrictions put on the newer cars is what keeps them in place.

I think you misread or didn't understand what I said. They have half the grid in 2nd rate cars or 2nd rate drivers. With non-up to date technology. This makes the series look amateurish IMO.

[alexkiller8]

answering to corageus, because in '90 european and american manufacters started to prefer use large displaced NA engines for their supercars (or at least for someone else was an unfullfilled wish, right jaguar?) so the wall of 500hp was easily passed (500hp was a sort of unbreakable virtual wall for '80 supercars like ferrari f40). Stock bmw S70/2 used in a road mclaren could develope something like 620hp, you can just image how much more powerfull could become in a racing version (infact has been used also by the bmw v12 lm and v12 lmr), so for this reason have been used for the first time air restrictors also in GT cars to balance performances of engines, the restricted race engines developed 550hp in early years, gaining power year by year with updates (afterall mclaren cars were so good that have been used for the work team of bmw motorsport... today a thing like that will be simply insane! image corvette racing that run a pair of mosler instead of corvette...)

[Purist]

Alex, I DID check that section of the GT1 site, but in the interval when I did, I saw no signs of updating. I just checked several race broadcasts, and did find two figures that varied. The Corvette was listed at 650hp, and the Ford GT at 560hp. However, that doesn't add up since the Nissan GT-R visibly has more frontal area/drag, but was only listed at 600hp. That doesn't make sense, so I'm just calling those numbers suspect unless you have some more thorough figures to provide.

TF110, only factories have the ability/funds to update their cars like that every year. Plenty of teams in Le Mans racing milk their LMPs and GTs along for multiple seasons, sometimes up to four or five.

No, it's not a joke to me. If the cars are exciting, again, I don't care how "old" they are. What matters in a World Championship to me is whether the cars are exciting enough, and whether the tracks raced at cover enough continents, though I would much prefer that they be "good" tracks. I hope new cars that are "better" in my eyes than the existing crop do come along, but if it takes a handful of years for that to happen, so be it. It doesn't make me take the series any less seriously. And if my first and only two criteria are met, why should it?

[TF110]

So 6 year old cars are up to date? Teams are that poor that they can't get new cars within that time period? It doesn't take manufacturers to have a car that's 'new'. I think the real issue is that most the teams that can get new cars don't want to race in the FIA GT championship.

[alexkiller8]

partially i think the same of tf110, but is easy to find an answer.... beyond nissan there was no manufacter intersted in project, develope and build an expensive gt1 car that nobody would buy! so if nissan was happy with new world champ building and supportin in 2010 sumo power and in 2011 both jrm teams, some other team was intersted just because was inside with a supported team (prodrive and maserati), some other manufacters/tunere soon became ****ed to give assistance to GT1 teams (reiter and matech), other simply didn't give a f**k before the start of champ it self (P&M). In a similiar context was simply insane to have GT1 racing versions of new street cars.

Answering purist, more than once i've heard and read about that the nissan engine was the most powerfull engine in the grid, with a poweroutput of more 600hp.