FIA GT Championship
Sports car racing briefs – The latest from 2008
While the first part of December saw several teams and manufacturers pull the plug on their racing programmes and races and tests were cancelled, the last week we’ve heard more positive sounds from the sportscar and GT racing world.
Racing Team Edil Cris has confirmed it could be entering the Le Mans Series next season. After a season in FIA GT in 2007 the team decided to run in the International GT Open series as well as the Italian GT championship in 2008. The team will stay in those two series in 2009 but the programme could be expanded. Team Manager Giancristiano Cavalleri:” As in 2008, we will take part in the International Open GT and in the Italian GT. Meanwhile, we are seriously considering the opportunity to extend our commitment to the Le Mans Series and the Polish GT too. On these basis we are delineating our sportive programmes and negotiations are on with candidate drivers to build our 2009 crews”.
The day before Christmas Karim Ojjeh and Claude-Yves Gosselin were in the Swiss Ski Resort of Gstaad. Having already confirmed their return to the Le Mans Series in 2009 at the LMS Prize Giving Ceremony in Paris, they were at the Gstaad Automobile Club to unveil their 2009 new colours. According to our colleagues at Endurance-Info the team name will probably be GAC Racing Team. A third driver will be announced at a later date.
Auto Sport (Japan) managed to get a scoop by spotting the FIA GT1 spec Nissan R35 GT-R in action. The brand new car, which is rumoured to be joining selected FIA GT rounds in 2009, was testing at Fuji Speedway by NISMO and its German driver Michael Krumm. No exact specifications of the car were confirmed, other than it having a V8 engine. An interesting fact is that the GT-R was on Michelin tyres, rather than the Bridgestone tyres Nissan uses in Super GT.
And finally, Frenchman Pierre Ragues has signed for the Signature team to contest the Le Mans Series in 2009 as well as the Le Mans 24 Hours. Having raced for Saulnier Racing in the LMP2 class this season the Frenchman will move up to the top class of the Le Mans Series. His team matewill be announced soon.
The Zytek/Gstaad Automobile Club pictures are courtesy of Endurance-Info/Le Mans Racing, the Nissan GT-R testing pictures are courtesy of Auto Sport (Japan):
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Ya! Nissan GT-R GT1!
This is key to Ratel’s move forward with a World Championship GT series. Very important news. If the economy recovers enough at the macro level, you will see renewed interest in racing world wide.
Glad to see people still want to race and I’m glad Edil Cris is returning to LMS competition, we need another strong Ferrari team….
In the hands of a privateer team that GTR will get eaten up by the corvettes and MC12s in the FIA GT, they don’t allow factory squads. In the LMS though they could have a full factory outfit.
But i have a feeling the GTR program would be a low budget token outfit. Just like Lamborghini’s Reiter enginering program with the Murcielago. It was just there because they felt their supercar has to be seen as a racecar. Meanwhile parent company VW/Audi was spending untold millions prototype racing at LeMans.
Nissan’s parent company Renault is already spending untold millions as well in F1 racing. They wouldnt want to get sidetracked by this program. I think it’s just a ploy to give this stunning looking car some street cred. Blame the auto reporters for comparing it to the Z06.
If they were serious about it…well, we all know the ALMS is the place to launch a new top flight program: bigger advertising, bigger market share, bigger everything. FIA GT races are not seen in the US, while ALMS races are seen almost everywhere in europe and Japan.
With Corvette going out this would be the time to get established in the ALMS, if they wanted.
You knew Honda is serious about P1 racing when they pulled out of F1.
This car was built and prepared by Nismo Bamba. Hardly a numb-nuts outfit and the very same Nismo that runs Nissan’s factory effort in JGTC. They have also prepared cars for Le Mans, they know what they are doing.
FIA GT only on the SURFACE doesn’t allow factory teams. Are you trying to tell me AF Corsa, Prospeed, Carsport-Phx were not supported by the factories???? Prospeed has Porsche factory drivers all season as does AF Corsa. Carsport has Pratt-Miller engineers in the paddock and GMAC on the side of the cars, oh yeah no factory supported teams in FIA GT….
Krumm also no longer runs JGTC, he is available to run FIA GT and Nismo has enough people to run a full effort in FIA GT.
GT1 as you currently know it will die. I’m positive Nismo spoke with the FIA before construction of the car to make sure it was built to 2010 specs and not 2009.
As it stands things will be different come 2010 with one GT class in ALMS/LMS but 2 in FIA GT.
The daddy of GT racing is the ALMS so anyone planning to run a full fledged program would venture there. GT1 being nonexistent in the ALMS is no excuse either, because Corvette was holding out for Nissan’s GTR or Acura’s new NSX to come challenge them.
Had they got word that Nissan was finally coming IMSA would be sure to keep the ALMS GT1 open and convince corvette to stay there.
This car will not be put in the same category as the Corvette GT1 (which soon dies).
There will never be a new NSX, only a replacement with a different layout and name, but that car has been cancelled because of budget-cuts.
So the Nissan GT-R GT1 is born for FIA GT, which is getting stronger and stronger with more and more different cars, and of course Nissan is interested in be able to say that there car can beat 6 different GT1’s than just 2! (Aston and Corvette in ACO GT1).
Besides the Nissan is kinda like the BMW M3 GT2, its a car that really doesn’t fit into the same category as Porsche, Lambo, Corvette, Aston and Ferrari!