Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Pc13 (talk | contribs) at 16:23, 26 July 2006. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The FIA GT Championship is a sports car racing series organized by the Stéphane Ratel Organisations (SRO) at the behest of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The championship is mostly concentrated in Europe, but throughout the years has visited other continents, most lately visiting Asia.

Regulations

FIA currently defines two categories of GT cars: GT1, or Grand Touring Cars, and GT2, or Series Grand Touring Cars. Each category has an annual driver champion, team champion, and manufacturer champion. Both categories are based on production road car designs, which must be produced in a minimum quantity of 25 examples to qualify. Both types may undergo significant modifications from the road car they are based on, but GT1 allows the use of exotic materials, better aerodynamics, larger brakes, wider tyres and larger engine admission restrictors.

For the 2006 season, the FIA has created a new class called GT3. GT3 cars are even closer to their production counterparts and are very simply racetrack prepared with the essentials (rollcages for safety, stripped interiors, race spec fuel tanks, etc.). Prestigious motorsports makes such as Aston Martin, Corvette, Dodge, Lamborghini and Maserati take part in FIA GT3 European Cup, a support series in some rounds of the main championship.

The FIA defines a GT car as "an open or closed automobile which has no more than one door on each side and a minimum of two seats situated one on each side of the longitudinal centre line of the car; these two seats must be crossed by the same transversal plane. This car must be able to be used perfectly legally on the open road, and adapted for racing on circuits or closed courses."

All races in the FIA GT Championship are of endurance type, a full race distance lasting a minimum of 500 km or a maximum of three hours, with the exception of the Spa 24 Hours and the Mil Milhas Brasileiras, which is run over a thousand miles and will be a round of the championship from 2007.

History

The FIA GT Championship began in 1994 as the BPR Global GT Series, a privately run series of endurance races for GT cars with gentlemen drivers. The series stopped

Champions

See also

• Gran Turismo (racing)

External links

• FIA GT Championship official site
• FIA International
• 2006 FIA GT Championship Course Dates
• GT Rules and Regulations

• Sports car racing
• FIA
• Auto racing series