So thanks to R3E I am becoming more and more interested in DTM and GT racing, or just racing in general. I now actually try to make time to sit down and watch on Sundays. One thing is confusing me are the GT series. Half the time I'm not sure which series I'm watching as it relates to other series. The lime rock race today for instance, I saw an Acura in the mix, no blancpain sponsor....so what was that? How many GT3 series are there? Also where is GT2? I search and read and often just end up with more questions. Can anyone give a definitive list of current GT(x) series and when and where they race? By the way, just finished watching the DTM race at eurospeedway. Enjoyable with those turn one passes. I also love watching the racing line vs my sim lines.
Heh, from my somewhat limited understanding, there certainly are a lot of different series out there. All of them seem to have different regulations and classes that compete too. What you saw at Limerock was probably the WeatherTech Sports Car Championship. We dont have Blancpain in the US, as that is the sponsor for the GT3 series in Europe. In the US, we dont really have GT3 cars either. We have weird regulations here. We have GTD class, which is slightly slower than GT3 (mainly because of awful tires). GT2 in Europe is GTLM in the US also. Pretty comparable though. Blancpain as I mentioned, is only GT3 cars (i think), so if you want multiple classes, you could look into the World Endurance Championship (WEC). These are all the cars that race at Le Mans in the 24 hr race. LMP1, LMP2, GT2, and GT3 cars usually in 6 hr endurance races. This seems to be the most popular series currently, as the multiple classes and general action are quite exciting. Certain cars also seem to run in certain series. Although the big dogs like Ferrari, Porsche and Chevrolet run in many all over the world. Which is probably why you saw an Acura at Limerock. Lot to look into, so you may just start off researching specific cars you enjoy, and seeing what series they race in, and start there. DTM and WTCC is simple since you are probably familiar if you have them in R3E, but any of the 3 series above would be good to look at as well.
http://world-challenge.com/race/2016-05-27-lime/ There was a GT/GTA/GT-Cup race on may 27th-28th at Lime rock .But I don't see footage online. The TC classes usually run the same weekend, and this is footage of that. But for some reason the GTS race is this upcoming thursday. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirelli_World_Challenge <~~ classes explained here. We do have "GT3" cars here in the states.... The pirelli world challenge is probably the biggest series. Which is what He saw. They run Acura TLX GT along with the Cadillac ATS-V.R Coupe, in GT class and they both sound AWESOME!. I saw them at Circuit of the Americas in Austin earlier this year. Their classes can get confusing. They also Have Ford Mustang Boss 302 and Chevy Camaro Z/28 in the GTS class, which I love. Because who can resist the sound of Murican muscle The classes in pwc don't match up to the classes in Blancpain or ADAC. They have 7 classes GT, GTA(amateur I believe), GT Cup, GTS, And 2 touring car classes TC A and TC B The ticket prices for pwc are quite reasonable too. I paid $50 for 3 days of racing. I love how sim racing is causing real racing to become more popular. I always thought racing was neat, but I didn't start following specific series until I started sim racing.The fact that cbs has picked up the series doesn't hurt.
Whoops, "Pirelli World Challenge"... WeatherTech... too many series. Listen to the guy above though, seems to know way more than me
A good GT series to watch (as all races are available to watch for free on YouTube, including qualifying, full races and highlights) is the Blancpain GT Series (which uses GT3 cars), see: https://www.youtube.com/user/gt1world http://www.blancpain-gt-series.com/ I went to the recent Blancpain GT Endurance race at Silverstone and it was great to watch: Highlights: Full race:
Yeah but blancpain doesn't race at limerock or in north america at all. The classes in PWC are different but they use some of the same cars. I watch all of the blancpain races on nismo tv's youtube. The videos on GTworld's channel are often not viewable in the united states, like the 2nd video you posted. It's been a really good series so far this season though.
Ah, okay, I guess you could also use a VPN to try to fool the GT Planet location restrictions. Obviously travel to the actual races is going to be a stretch if in the US, though!
The biggest GT3 or GT3-like series are -Blancpain GT -ADAC GT Masters -Pirelli World Challenge (GT/GTA) -IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship (GTD) -Australian GT Championship -British GT Championship -Japanese SuperGT GT300 -VLN (Sp9-Class)
That's awesome information thank you gentlemen! Yes it was definitely PWC on yesterday - I did not realize it was a separate US series. That clears up a lot for me. So is it safe to say then, that outside the formula classes, all other racing series are continental or regional? Europe stays in Europe, US in north America, etc???
Thanks for this list. Another point of confusion for me....was Blancpain GT vs ADAC. The blancpain website did a good job clearing that up. http://www.blancpain.com/en/championships
No prob. There is also a Real Motorsport Thread: https://forum.sector3studios.com/index.php?threads/real-motorsport.61/
Here is some footage of the Acura from the last race which was held at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama. You'll see it racing against Bentleys, Mclarens, Porsches, Nissans, and lots of other cars you usually see in "GT3" class in Blancpain and ADAC. Awesome car. Acura sound porn Neither Iracing or R3E have this car yet
There is no GT3 in WEC. There is GTE/GTLM (which is basically the same), divided into a PRO and an AM (Amateur) class. If I remember correctly in AM only older cars from previous years are allowed to keep things a bit cheaper. At the moment I'm not sure if the AM cars are further reduced in performance in some way.
Exactly they are basically the same. The GT class in pwc, and the GTLM in Wec are the Murican equivalent of GT3. http://nasportscar.com/gtlm-v-gtd-v-gt3/ "The first thing that is obvious from the time sheets is the speed. For example, at Sebring, the GTLM class Ferrari was approximately 4.5 sec quicker than the GTD spec version. And at Silverstone, the GTLM version is about 2 seconds quicker than the GT3 spec car. These gaps are similar in all the cars. GTLM is the fastest, GT3 is the next quickest and GTD being the slowest." from the link above, it doesn't mention PWC's GT class. Apparently IMSA is adopting FIA GT3 regulations. I wouldn't be surprised if WEC and PWC follow suite. http://sportscar365.com/imsa/iwsc/imsa-to-adopt-fia-gt3-spec-class-for-2016-pc-extended/
Lime Rock is a nice little & fast Track, would like to see it at R3E btw.....changed the chicane part , didn't they ?
The 24h Series is another big thing with GT3 participation: http://www.24hseries.com The FIA Regulations include an annual driver ranking update in gold/silver/bronze classes. Some Series require to have an PRO and an AM Driver in the team. I think in Australia the classification decides the minimum alliwed pitstop time aswell. Very confusing all together.
This article is a few years old, but it's a good quick overview of the GT classes: Understanding GT Sports Car Racing: A Class-By-Class Guide. ACO and SRO are racing organizations, and Grand-Am and ALMS merged to form the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
When I wrote "they are basically the same", I didn't mean that GT3 and GTE/GTLM are basically the same. Only GTE and GTLM are basically the same. GT3 is quite a bit different. GT classes look confusing at first sight but mostly they aren't. Around the world there are only three different basic GT classes that are also popular and widely known: GT4, GT3 and GTE. GTE has derived from the former GT2. GT1 is (sadly) dead. These three classes have some local variants. The American GTD for example is a modified GT3. Some GT class-derivates only have a special BoP while GTD have stronger modifications compared to the standard GT3 (i.e. different rear wings). The GTE/3/4 cars mostly differ in the amount and focus of allowed modifications compared to the original cars. GT4 are the least modified while GTE is the most modified. But I think the amount of modification is not the main difference between GTE and GT3, it's more about the focus. Performance-wise GT3 and GTE have come a bit closer to each other during the last years. I personally don't care too much for the local variants of the three basic classes. When I see a GTD, I see a GT3.