FIA GT1 World Championship

FIA GT1 World Championship

The FIA GT1 World Championship logo
Category	Grand tourer
Country	International
Inaugural season	2010
Folded	2012
Drivers	Appr. 40
Teams	9
Tyre suppliers	Michelin, Pirelli
Last Drivers' champion	Marc Basseng Markus Winkelhock
Last Teams' champion	All-Inkl.com Münnich Motorsport
Official website	www.gt1world.com
Current season

The FIA GT1 World Championship was a world championship sports car racing series developed by the SRO Group and regulated by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), held from 2010 to 2012. It featured multiple grand tourer race cars based on production road cars and conforming with the GT1 (2010–2011) and GT3 (2012) regulations competing in one-hour races on multiple continents. All cars are performance balanced with weight and restrictor adjustments to make different makes artificially more equal. Championships were awarded each season for drivers and teams.

The FIA GT1 World Championship started in 2010 as a successor to the previous FIA GT Championship which featured the GT1 category as well as a GT2 category. In 2012 the series originally planned to move away from exclusive use of GT1 cars by allowing 2009-spec GT2 from the former FIA GT Championship as well as current performance balanced GT3 specification cars to compete alongside the series' current GT1 cars. However as there were no interested GT2 teams and only a handful of former GT1 runners were willing to participate, the SRO decided that the 2012 season would be contested with GT3-spec cars only (yet retaining GT1 in the series' title). The series was folded after the 2012 season due to the high costs, shrinking car counts and issues with the calendar, and morphed into the FIA GT Series for 2013.

Format

The FIA GT1 World Championship holds races in ten countries, with each event consisting of two races over a weekend. Qualifying involves a knock-out system similar to Formula One, in which three sessions are held and following each session, the slowest cars are eliminated and their grid positions set. The first race of each weekend is a qualifying race, the results of which determine the starting grid for the second race awarding full championship points. Each car is required to change tires and drivers at least once during each race.^[1] The points system for the series is identical to that adopted by the FIA in 2010 with the top ten finishers in the second race earning points; only the top three finishers in the qualifying race earn points.^[2]

The series penalized cars which won races with Ballast weight, but that practice was removed for 2012. With rules changes in 2012, there were no limit to the number of manufacturers in the series. Each manufacturer could only be represented by one team, and each team must bring two identical cars to enter the championship; single entries or entries with more than two cars were not allowed. To ensure close competition, each model of car was tested by the FIA to determine any mandatory adjustments (such as extra weight ballasts and restrictor tweaks) for performance balancing.^[1][3] Performance adjustments are also made between races during the season.

To defray costs for individual teams, the SRO provided free transport for cars and equipment as well as airline tickets for ten personnel per team.^[1]

Races

The world tour visited three continents: Europe, Asia and South America. Yas Marina Circuit of the United Arab Emirates represents the series' only Middle East round. South America has featured the Potrero de los Funes Circuit in Argentina and Interlagos in Brazil. European races have included the Czech Brno Circuit, British Silverstone Circuit where the winners are awarded the RAC Tourist Trophy, French Paul Ricard, Portuguese Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, and Spanish Circuito de Navarra. Germany's races have switched from the Nürburgring to the Sachsenring from 2010 to 2011, while Belgium's races have moved from the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps to Zolder. For 2011 the series visited Asia with a Chinese round at the Ordos International Circuit. Due to the cancellation of the round at Curitiba in 2011, the series elected to visit Goldenport Park Circuit at Beijing shortly after the round at Ordos, with a short exhibition street race afterwards.

History

Six manufacturers were represented in the inaugural season of FIA GT1, with Corvette, Maserati, and Aston Martin retaining the grandfathered cars they had previously utilized in FIA GT. Ford, Nissan, and Lamborghini all brought new or modified vehicles developed specifically for FIA GT1.

The first champions of the 2010 season were crowned at the San Luis street circuit in Argentina after the Qualifying Race on the 5th of December 2010. Michael Bartels and Andrea Bertolini, three-time FIA GT Champions, clinched the Drivers' Championship while their Vitaphone Racing Team clinched the Teams' Championship. Aston Martin earned the SRO Trophy for Manufacturers. In 2011 the defending champions did not return and Maserati was no longer represented, leaving a field of 18 cars from five manufacturers. The series visited China for the first time for two rounds. Germans Michael Krumm and Lucas Luhr of the JR Motorsports team won the year's Drivers' Championship in the penultimate race of the season, while Hexis AMR won the Teams' title in the final race of the year.

List of FIA GT1 World Champions

Season	Driver Champions	Team Champions
2010	Michael Bartels Andrea Bertolini	Vitaphone Racing Team
2011	Lucas Luhr Michael Krumm	Hexis AMR
2012	Marc Basseng Markus Winkelhock	All-Inkl.com Münnich Motorsport

See also

• Blancpain Endurance Series
• FIA GT3 European Championship
• GT4 European Cup

References

External links

• FIA GT1 World Championship