GT4 Championships

Nürburgring GT3 and GT4 briefs

© Planetlemans – Brecht Decancq

On Friday evening the ADAC GT Masters confirmed its plans for the 2011 season in a press conference in the paddock. Eight race weekends are scheduled for next season, five in Germany as well as a race in Belgium, Austria and The Netherlands.

The proposed calendar for 2011 is:

6-8 May: Hockenheim, Germany
20-22 May: Oschersleben, Germany
3-5 June: Zolder, Belgium
8-10 July: Nurburgring, Germany
5-7 August: Österreich-Ring, Austria
19-21 August: Lausitzring, Germany
16-18 September: Assen, The Netherlands
30 September-2 October: Sachsenring, Germany

Like this season the full season will be broadcasted live on free-to-air German TV channel Kabel Eins. Talks are ongoing to extend the coverage into Austria for example. The series will also have prize money for 2011, a total of 150.000 euro has been made available for this.

The top 5 in the ‘amateur’ driver championship and as well as the top five of the full season team entries at the end of the season will get a share of the prize money. Winning the championship will earn a team or driver 25.000 euro, second place is still worth 20.000 euro, third place 12.000, fourth place 10.000 and a fifth place is worth 8.000 euro.

Interesting to note is that 2009 Dutch GT4 champion Christiaan Frankenhout is racing in the Team Rosberg Audi R8 LMS this weekend. The Dutchman impressed everyone in the paddock by grabbing the second place on the grid for the first ADAC GT Masters race of the weekend.

Meanwhile in the HTC Dutch GT4 Cup and the GT4 European Cup two cars made their racing debut, the Lotus Evora GT4 and the Chevrolet Camaro.

In qualifying this morning the Lotus Evora GT4, driven by Ollie Hancock, took pole position for the first race and netted a third place on the GT4 European Cup grid for the second race. In the first qualifying session the Evora GT4 was .279s quicker than the Ekris Motorsport BMW M3 GT4, the Dutch GT4 pole sitter. In the second session the car was over a second slower than the Rhesus Racing Aston Martin, but still only a few tenths from the second placed BMW.

The two Equipe Verschuur Camaro’s were tenth and fifteenth overall in the first qualifying session and seventh and twenty-sixth in the second session.