GT4 Championships

The February GT4 Update

© Planetlemans - Brecht Decancq // Ginetta G50

There was quite some GT4 news in the last couple of weeks. Both the GT4 European Cup and the Dutch GT4 Championship had several interestin announcements regarding their teams and calendars. Time for the February GT4 Update.

Let’s kick off with the Dutch GT4 Championship. After announcing a provisional calendar in November the organisers were able to release their official calendar this week. From the two possible Spa-Francorchamps dates mentioned on the November calendar the series opted for the first one, joining the Le Mans Series at the Belgian track in May. The trip to the other Belgian circuit, Zolder, has been replaced by another Zandvoort round in August.

The new 2009 Dutch GT4 Championship calendar:

• April 13 - Zandvoort, Netherlands
• May 10 - Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium
• June 1 - Zandvoort, Netherlands
• July 5 - Assen, Netherlands
• August ? - Zandvoort, Netherlands
• September 6 - Zandvoort, Netherlands
• October 11 - Zandvoort, Netherlands

With the confirmation of the calendar it is also possible for teams to confirm their entry. As of February 17 there were 14 confirmed entries. The number of cars on the grid at Zandvoort for the opening race of the season is likely to be between 16 and 20 cars.

KS Motorsport announced its entry into the Dutch GT4 Championship with the Ginetta G50R at the end of January and a few days later Match Racing was seen testing a Ginetta G50 at Zandvoort. BMW will be well represented in Dutch GT4 as a BMW Z4 will be entered by Albi Engineering (for Richard van den Berg and Ferdinand Kool) and a brand new BMW M3 GT4 V8 is confirmed for KTG Racing.

Moving to the GT4 European Cup then.

One day after BMW Motorsport officially announced the BMW M3 GT4 it was Genpact Racing Team that announced its entry into the European GT4 series. Dutch driver Kevin Veltman will race the new BMW. Callaway Competition announced it would be building several Corvette C6 GT4 cars for the 2009 season while another American muscle car, the Chevrolet Camaro LS3 V8 GT4 was shown at Daytona.

If these new cars show up will probably be known by next month as the GT4 Balance of Performance tests will take place at Paul Ricard in one month time. The general media and test days for the GT4 European Cup will also take place at Paul Ricard on April 6-7.

So far so good for the GT4 series…