What do you think of the current British GT

[ALMS-FANATIC]

I think the championship has gotten very decent indeed. I had my reservations about the GT-GT cup system but it seems that it is working quite nicely.

The organisers seem to be thinking with us in their minds.
They've alowed very nice cars in that normally wouldn't be eligible for the series.

What I would like to see is them coming to Zandvoort for an overseas round, and believe you me, it's going to happen! FINALLY

[PaulSands]

They had Spa last year included as part of the 1000km for FIA Sportscars but SRO said no this year citing that if any of the teams wanted to do Spa they could enter the FIA round.
I'm thoroughly enjoyig it though I agree with Martin Short that the race lengths should be mixed up a bit and races on Saturday & Sunday can be a pain when it comes to maintaining peace at home

ps I'd love to se them at Zandvoort

[Graham Goodwin]

I like it so much that we sponsor the Cup class!!!!!

[Osella]

I'm really looking forward to Silverstone, I havnt seen BGT yet this year.

[Bramzel]

Great racing and a nice and competative field, though I do think that with this amount of crashing going on we won't see any teams anymore next year

[JimW]

Great improvement on what I feared. A good entry of cars with several interesting ones. Produced a good race at Oulton (two actually). An hour is about the right length and I would have enjoyed it more if I could have heard the commentary. (That's a disadvantage of mrshalling out at Foulston's.) Luckily my fellow observer is an expert so I enjoyed regular progress bulletins.

Regards

Jim

[Graham Goodwin]

Worth mentioning that for the last three races you'll be able to get the commentary by radio (courtesy of Embassy racing) I think its due to be on 1602mw so don't forget your pocket radio.

[JimW]

Originally posted by Graham Goodwin
Worth mentioning that for the last three races you'll be able to get the commentary by radio (courtesy of Embassy racing) I think its due to be on 1602mw so don't forget your pocket radio.

Brilliant, well done Embassy. I hope that they make sure that reception at each circuit is worth their £s. At least one circuit has very poor coverage.

Jim

[rdjones]

I am really impressed with the British GT Championship so far this year, there has been some fantastic and close racing. I can't wait for more of the same at Silverstone in a few weeks time.

[Les]

I've really enjoyed but I still have trouble following the race - needs more run-downs in the commentary (and louder though the radio will help heaps).
I want it to stay like now - I don't want the real big ones in grabbing all the limelight.

[TerryC]

I haven't seen/heard/known much about the British GT scene at all. Hopefully it'll be a good race for me to watch in Silverstone in 2/3 weeks. I'm looking forward to it. BTW, which cars are the dominant ones?

[Kicking-back]

It's the best year of British GTs for a while - with a decent sized entry in the main class, which is always good to see.

[Pete Fenelon]

Seems to be OK but the gap between BGT and FIA-GT seems to be getting wider not narrower...

[Rossi12345]

yeh i think it has worked well has produced some great racing

[PaulSands]

Originally posted by Pete Fenelon
Seems to be OK but the gap between BGT and FIA-GT seems to be getting wider not narrower...

Thats good in my eyes, we dont want everything to be the same

[SALEEN S7R]

Personally I feel that the championship is doing OK at the moment, decent grids and good racing. Hopefully in the next 2 or 3 years we will see the re introdcution of the GT class on a full time basis, but only if we can have a guranteed GT grid of 6+ entries per round. We need to remember that British GT is aimed at being a feeder series to FIA GT/LMES/ALMS - just like the Spanish GT's/FFSA/Belcar etc nothing more, nothing less, and this system works, just look at how strong the FIA GT/LMES grids are.

[Audi R8R]

Yeah, just look at how any cars there are in the N-GT class of the FIA GT Championship!

[Old Ropey]

It's something of a pity that they don't allow bike engined cars. A few, maybe 15, Radicals, and perhaps others, would make for a bit more interest.

[SALEEN S7R]

Originally posted by Audi R8R
Yeah, just look at how any cars there are in the N-GT class of the FIA GT Championship!

Yeah lets do that, lets not use the Spa 24hrs as a example though as that woudnt be truley representative of the strength of the FIA GT NGT class. Lets look at Donnington, where there was 11 NGT entrants. A pretty strong entry if u ask me.

Lets look too at the LMES GT class, 16 entries for Silverstone at the moment. That to my mind is also very strong. As I said, the British GT championship is doing its job, and doing it very well, along with all the other national GT championships. Hence we have extremely strong entry lists for both FIA GT and the LMES.

The FIA GT championship started the year with relativly average grid sizes this year thats true yes. But since the start of the season its slowly become better and better and we once again have very strong grids. The LMES too has very strong grids in all classess.

Just look at how many teams have come from British GT into the LMES/FIA GT championship in the last couple of years, some of which are still competing in British GT. JWR, Scuderia Ecosse, Gruppe M, Rollcentre, GNM.

[Graham Goodwin]

The key though is which move up and who is there to fill in beneath - The season-long FIA GT N-GT entry has been awfully thin - 5 of the 11 Donington entries were one-off (or at best very limited programme) entries. A six car class (50% of which is Freisinger) is not what the doctor ordered for a season long battle.

[SALEEN S7R]

I agree Graham, but prior to Donnington at Brno there were 9 NGT class cars in the FIA GT championship. 3 of which were entered by Freisinger, hardly 50% of the NGT field. And yes when teams move up there is a question of who will fill the void in the national GT championships but as we have seen this year, particulary with the LMES this does not neccaricly mean the end of the teams national GT campaigns. Teams will move up into the internaional scene and we will likely lose them from the various national GT series, but then new young teams come up into the national GT series dont they, people like DRM for example.

[Graham Goodwin]

But only 5 of those have been full season entries (freisinger x 3, Proton and GPC)There have been one-off (or two-off entries) at individual races but that's the diference - race entries not championship entries.

[SALEEN S7R]

Fair enough Graham thats true yeah. But is the FIA GT NGT class really doing so badly because the FIA GT championship has neglected the class and concentrated more on the GT class? Or is it because of the introduction of the new LMES? For my money its because of the LMES, the series is more financially viable for the smaller teams as the races are longer and they can run 3 pay drivers (for example) instead of 2 in the FIA GT, NGT class, plus theres the added fact that the LMES is signifcantly smaller than the FIA GT championship in terms of the ammount of events. If u look at whos left in the FIA GT championship now its mainly all the big budget teams, with a few smaller privateer teams. The LMES GT/NGT classess are differnt though, combining a few big teams and lots of smaller budget squads. Really and truely I dont think the FIA GT NGT class would be struggling this year if it wasnt for the introdcution of the LMES, im not slamming the LMES as its the best sportscar racing series in Europe, but it has certainly taken away potential entrants for the FIA GT series IMO.

[Graham Goodwin]

There are very few teams indeed that have left the N-GT class of the FIA to do LMES I'm afraid - The fact is that the FIA GTchampionship is very expensive for an N-GT privateer