GT2 European Series

(Redirected from Blancpain GT Sports Club)

The GT2 European Series (formerly the GT Sports Club and Blancpain GT Sports Club), organized by SRO Motorsports Group, is an auto racing series for the SRO GT2 class of grand tourer cars, designed for amateur pay drivers in the FIA Bronze category. This target audience is also known in sportscar as "gentleman drivers".

GT2 European Series
CategoryGrand tourer
CountryInternational
Inaugural season2015
Tyre suppliersPirelli
Drivers' championFrance Anthony Beltoise
France Henry Hassid
Teams' championItaly LP Racing
Official websitewww.gt2europeanseries.com
Current season

The GT Sports Club Europe series was fully suspended in 2020 as a consequence of the global COVID-19 pandemic, and thus no GT2-class competition was held in 2020. The GT2 series was re-established in a significantly different format in 2021, adding a Pro-Am style subclass and Fanatec as the title sponsor; this Fanatec GT2 European Series continued in 2022.

The 2021-onwards GT2 series runs in support of the GT World Challenge Europe weekends and includes Friday practice and qualifying with one race each on Saturday and Sunday.

History

edit

The inaugural Blancpain GT Sports Club series in 2015 was aimed at amateur pay drivers, with competition limited to drivers of a grade similar to the FIA Bronze category at the time, and with cars homologated in a number of ways and open to running older chassis. By the end of 2019 it was possible to use any of: FIA GT3 for that season, re-homologated cars from earlier GT3 generations, RACB G3 cars, GTE-spec cars, and Renault Sport Trophy cars, all competing in a single class through a Balance of Performance process and additional Cup Trophys based on driver age or car subclass. In the early seasons Bronze included subcategories Titanium for drivers aged 50-59 and Iron for drivers over 60 years of age;[1] these subcategories are not in use in 2022.

The Sports Club raceday design was originally focused on running lunchtime-to-lunchtime to ease weekend travel and encourage "arrive and drive" entries, with free practice and qualifying sessions on day one, followed by qualifying and main races the following day.[1]

GT Sports Club Europe was suspended in 2020 as a consequence of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The "GT Sports Club" concept was relaunched in 2021 as an umbrella covering a championship built on an also new GT2 class; a sister GT3-only championship with a similar approach as before to running multiple generations of GT3 together; and a non-competitive "GT1 Sports Club" aimed at bringing road-going supercars on track together. These series now support the GT World Challenge Europe calendar.[2]

Champions

edit
Year Overall Titanium Cup Iron Cup Xtra Cup Cup Challenge (2015)
Cup (2017–)
2015   Max Bianchi Not held   Martin Lanting Not held   Wong Chong Yau Runme
2016   Michał Broniszewski   Martin Lanting   Mauro Casadei
  Davide Roda
  Jürgen Smet
Not held
2017   Anthony Pons   Stephen Earle   Dilantha Malagamuwa   Howard Blank
2018   Karim Ojjeh   Karim Ojjeh   Stephen Earle Not held Not awarded
2019   Jens Reno Møller   Coach McKansy   Stephen Earle
Fanatec GT2 European Series
Overall Pro-Am Cup Am Cup
2021   Anders Fjordbach
  Mark Patterson
  Christoph Ulrich
2022   Nicolas Saelens
  Stienes Longin
  Henry Hassid
2023   Henry Hassid

  Anthony Beltoise

  Jan Krabec

References

edit
  1. ^ a b "SRO Motorsports Group introduces GT Sports Club, a new Series exclusively for Bronze drivers". gtsportsclub.com. Archived from the original on November 17, 2015. Retrieved November 15, 2015.
  2. ^ "First Eight Teams Commit To GT2 European & GT Rebellion Series". www.dailysportscar.com. Retrieved 2024-01-07.
edit