GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup

GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup
Category	Grand tourer; Endurance racing
Country	Europe
Inaugural season	2011
Tyre suppliers	Michelin (2011-2012); Pirelli (2013-)
Drivers' champion	Andrea Caldarelli; Marco Mapelli
Teams' champion	Orange1 FFF Racing Team
Official website	www.gt-world-challenge-europe.com
	Current season

The GT World Challenge Endurance Cup, formerly the Blancpain Endurance Series from 2011 to 2015 and Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup from 2016 to 2019, is a sports car racing series developed by the SRO Group and the Royal Automobile Club of Belgium (RACB) with approval from the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). It features grand tourer racing cars modified from production road cars complying with the FIA's GT3 regulations. The series's goal is to be an endurance racing championship for GT3 cars, similar to the European Le Mans Series which uses GTE cars and Le Mans Prototypes. The series is primarily sponsored by Swiss watchmaker Blancpain, and the company's Lamborghini Super Trofeo series serves as support races. In 2019, SRO announced that their sponsorship deal with Blancpain had been discontinued and the series was renamed the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup.

Format

The Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup reestablishes several elements of the former FIA GT Championship, with three hour endurance races held on European circuits such as Monza and Silverstone, as well as a continuation of the Spa 24 Hours. The races feature five classes derived from the FIA's GT3, GT4, and Supersport regulations, with the GT3 cars divided into a class for professional driver line-ups (GT3 Pro), a class for a mixed team of professional and amateurs (GT3 Pro-Am), and a class for gentleman drivers who use cars at least one year old (Gentlemen). The FIA's ranking system for drivers is utilized in determining what class each entry is eligible for. The GT4 category remained its own class.^[1]

For the 2012 season, the GT4 and Supersport category were dropped and the GT3 Citation class was modified into the Gentlemen class.^[2] In 2013, grids have reached 60 cars for regular races.

The series uses extensive performance balancing and handicap weights to equalise the cars' performance.

Champions

Drivers

Year	Pro Cup (2011–2015) Overall (2016–)	Silver Cup	Pro-Am Cup	Gentlemen Trophy (2011–2014) Am Cup (2015–)	GT4
2011	Greg Franchi	Not held	Niek Hommerson Louis Machiels	Georges Cabannes	Alex Buncombe Jordan Tresson Christopher Ward
2012	Christopher Haase Christopher Mies Stéphane Ortelli		Niek Hommerson Louis Machiels	Pierre Hirschi Robert Hissom	Not held (discontinued)
2013	Maximilian Buhk		Lucas Ordóñez	Jean-Luc Beaubelique Jean-Luc Blanchemain Patrice Goueslard
2014	Laurens Vanthoor		Stefano Gai Andrea Rizzoli	Francisco Guedes Peter Mann
2015	Alex Buncombe Katsumasa Chiyo Wolfgang Reip		Duncan Cameron Matt Griffin	Ian Loggie Julian Westwood
2016	Rob Bell Côme Ledogar Shane van Gisbergen		Alessandro Bonacini Michał Broniszewski Andrea Rizzoli	Vadim Gitlin Liam Talbot Marco Zanuttini
2017	Mirko Bortolotti Andrea Caldarelli Christian Engelhart		Jonathan Adam Ahmad Al Harthy	Jacques Duyver David Perel Marco Zanuttini
2018	Yelmer Buurman Maro Engel Luca Stolz	Alex Fontana Mikaël Grenier Adrian Zaugg	Chris Buncombe Nick Leventis Lewis Williamson	Adrian Amstutz Leo Machitski
2019	Andrea Caldarelli Marco Mapelli	Nico Bastian Timur Boguslavskiy Felipe Fraga	Ahmad Al Harthy Charlie Eastwood Salih Yoluç	Adrian Amstutz Leo Machitski

Teams

Year	Pro Cup (2011–2015) Overall (2016–)	Silver Cup	Pro-Am Cup	Gentlemen Trophy (2011–2014) Am Cup (2015–)	GT4
2011	Belgian Audi Club	Not held	Vita4One	Ruffier Racing	RJN Motorsport
2012	Belgian Audi Club Team WRT		AF Corse	Sainteloc Racing	Not held (discontinued)
2013	Marc VDS Racing Team		Nissan GT Academy Team RJN	SOFREV Auto Sport Promotion
2014	Belgian Audi Club Team WRT		Scuderia Villorba Corse	AF Corse
2015	Belgian Audi Club Team WRT		AF Corse	AKKA ASP
2016	Garage 59		Kessel Racing	Kessel Racing
2017	Bentley Team M-Sport		Oman Racing Team with TF Sport	Kessel Racing
2018	(Mercedes-AMG Team) Black Falcon		961 Corse / AF Corse	Barwell Motorsport
2019	Orange1 FFF Racing Team	AKKA ASP Team	Oman Racing with TF Sport	Barwell Motorsport

References

^ "The new GT Endurance Series in detail!". planetlemans.com. 2010-11-03. Retrieved 2010-11-03.
^ "2012 Blancpain Endurance Series Presentation (english)". SRO. 2012. Retrieved 2012-03-20. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

External links

Official website

[GT_Endurance-1] "The new GT Endurance Series in detail!". planetlemans.com. 2010-11-03. Retrieved 2010-11-03.

[2012_BES_Presentation-2] "2012 Blancpain Endurance Series Presentation (english)". SRO. 2012. Retrieved 2012-03-20. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

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