GT Racing - GT1, GT3, Blancpain Endurance Series & National GT SeriesSports Cars

[InSight]

Man, next-gen GT3 are really gorgeous.

 

[Fryto]

So are we seeing all these new GT3's on the grid this year? Or only next year?

 

[Cap'n Jack]

So are we seeing all these new GT3's on the grid this year? Or only next year?

Audi Sport's Facebook page states that it will race at the 24 Hours of Nürburgring and 24 Hours of Spa, although it doesn't say which year, one can only assume they mean this year.

And some more information on the car has surfaced.

 

[catamount39]

The amazing thing (besides the fantastic looks) is the safety of this car...it even passed an LMP1 crash test (the safest racing cars on this earth)! And yet somehow it's lighter than the previous one. Audi using Audi black magic.

 

[cnd01]

The amazing thing (besides the fantastic looks) is the safety of this car...it even passed an LMP1 crash test! And yet somehow it's lighter than the previous one. Audi using Audi black magic.

The LMP1 crash tests are done at 37 mph. Just saying.

Anyway, it's a good looking car. It'll be good

 

[TDZdave]

Another new GT3 in the flesh,

 

[cnd01]

Very nice MB. When is the M4 GT3 car coming out or is it already out and I missed that bus?

 

[05XR8]

Pics of the M6 have been posted above.

 

[catamount39]

GT3 grids in 2016 are going to look like a flash-forward to the future.

 

[Brutaka]

Which GT racing series are you all most hyped about? Mine is PWC.

 

[catamount39]

Which GT racing series are you all most hyped about? Mine is PWC.

PWC here too...as well as Blancpain. Gonna be some great racing this year.

 

[TDZdave]

ALL OF THEM, GT3 offers such diverse grids of cars and you always see ones that have been built by manufacturers to compete in the regional series but not globally, and that's really cool!

 

[cnd01]

Which GT racing series are you all most hyped about? Mine is PWC.

They have too much time spent under yellow. It's going to be a wreckfest at COTA with all those cars. Sprint format, standing start, 114 entries, what could possibly go wrong at turn 1 at COTA

 

[IforceV8]

Forecast for Austin this weekend.

• Thursday A slight chance of snow and sleet before 9am, then a slight chance of rain between 9am and noon. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 38. Windy, with a north wind 15 to 25 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
• Thursday Night Partly cloudy, with a low around 27. North northeast wind 10 to 15 mph.
• Friday Partly sunny, with a high near 45. Northeast wind 5 to 10 mph.
• Friday Night Mostly cloudy, with a low around 34. Northeast wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening.
• Saturday A 20 percent chance of rain. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 50. North northeast wind around 5 mph.
• Saturday Night Mostly cloudy, with a low around 40.
• Sunday Mostly sunny, with a high near 61.

Schedule and entry list.
http://www.world-challenge.com/images/events/Copy-of-COTA-Schedule-v8-022715.pdf
http://www.world-challenge.com/images/events/COTA-Entry-List-v7.pdf

and stream link
http://www.world-challengetv.com/

 

[CodeRedR51]

GT3 grids in 2016 are going to look like a flash-forward to the future.

Except for the GT-R.

 

[Snaeper]

Am I the only one that doesn't like the front end of the new R8 LMS? Sign me up for a Mercedes!

 

[catamount39]

That's a V8 doe!! (start at 0:25)


Edited for fact checking

 

[CodeRedR51]

That's a V8TT?! (start at 0:25)

This car uses the same N/A 6.2L as the SLS GT3. No turbos.

 

[Furinkazen]

That's a V8TT?! (start at 0:25)

6.2 How did you get that embedded?

 

[catamount39]

This car uses the same N/A 6.2L as the SLS GT3. No turbos.

Really? Sweet! I thought it was going to use the blasted new engine with the Turbos...this makes me happy. Bless you Mercedes for this engine choice!

6.2 How did you get that embedded?

I pasted the link and it worked...somehow.

 

[Snaeper]

This car uses the same N/A 6.2L as the SLS GT3. No turbos.

It should be noted that the SLS AMG GT3 (And now the GT GT3) use a modified 6.3L version of the 6.2L road engine.

On another note, I wonder what's going to happen to GT3 now that the third wave of cars are coming out. Given how numerically popular it's been, what's going to happen to all of the soon-to-be outdated GT3 cars? There's either going to be some insane club-racing or the possibility of high quality rogue-GT series popping up.

I wouldn't be surprised if events like Dubai, and Nurburgring see record-setting levels of GT machinery.

 

[CodeRedR51]

It should be noted that the SLS AMG GT3 (And now the GT GT3) use a modified 6.3L version of the 6.2L road engine.

And here I was last week getting corrected to say it the other way around.

Make up your minds people!

 

[Panoz]

It should be noted that the SLS AMG GT3 (And now the GT GT3) use a modified 6.3L version of the 6.2L road engine.

On another note, I wonder what's going to happen to GT3 now that the third wave of cars are coming out. Given how numerically popular it's been, what's going to happen to all of the soon-to-be outdated GT3 cars? There's either going to be some insane club-racing or the possibility of high quality rogue-GT series popping up.

I wouldn't be surprised if events like Dubai, and Nurburgring see record-setting levels of GT machinery.

McLaren have the option for teams to upgrade from the 12C to the 650S. Nissan have minor changes for the GT-R this year also.

I don't know if the current Audis can be upgraded to the new version or if everything is brand new. Mercedes seems to be going the way of BMW on building a completely new GT3 car.

Will not be surprised if a bunch of Z4 and SLS GT3s will have new homes in a years time.

 

[Snaeper]

McLaren have the option for teams to upgrade from the 12C to the 650S. Nissan have minor changes for the GT-R this year also.

I don't know if the current Audis can be upgraded to the new version or if everything is brand new. Mercedes seems to be going the way of BMW on building a completely new GT3 car.

Will not be surprised if a bunch of Z4 and SLS GT3s will have new homes in a years time.

Mercedes, BMW, Lamborghini and Audi will all trickle down. Ferrari might as well, too, though the 458 and 488 GTB might share a chassis, they could be significantly different enough that some teams might choose to just get a new car (but that depends on whether or not Ferrari opt to use the TT V8 or pull a Mercedes and stick with their current motor).

That's a lot of machinery flooding a marketplace, and depending on how the second hand GT3 environment fares, it could shift the balance of how many GT3 marques we see going forward for Generation 4.

And here I was last week getting corrected to say it the other way around.

Make up your minds people!

I wasn't involved in that conversation, so I would recommend that those people should do fact-checks before they state things.

 

[IforceV8]

Am I the only one that doesn't like the front end of the new R8 LMS? Sign me up for a Mercedes!

The MB looks like a 911 rear ended a Buick park Avenue Ultra to me.

 

[Snaeper]

The MB looks like a 911 rear ended a Buick park Avenue Ultra to me.

Well the Mercedes is actually a cohesive, streamlined design to me

The part of the Audi that really bugs me is this:

 

[Cap'n Jack]

On another note, I wonder what's going to happen to GT3 now that the third wave of cars are coming out. Given how numerically popular it's been, what's going to happen to all of the soon-to-be outdated GT3 cars? There's either going to be some insane club-racing or the possibility of high quality rogue-GT series popping up.

I know that here in Australia, the older spec cars will still be able to compete in the Australian GT Championship, but within the second tier class. There's also an Aston Martin DBRS9 already competing in our 'Sports Sedans' series which features mostly silhouette racing cars (the cars you'll find on their grids are nuts, worth looking into if you haven't seen it before), so I wouldn't be surprised if some more pop up in there too.

 

[Snaeper]

I know that here in Australia, the older spec cars will still be able to compete in the Australian GT Championship, but within the second tier class. There's also an Aston Martin DBRS9 already competing in our 'Sports Sedans' series which features mostly silhouette racing cars (the cars you'll find on their grids are nuts, worth looking into if you haven't seen it before), so I wouldn't be surprised if some more pop up in there too.

I know, it's one of the things I like about the Aussie GT series. The fact that there's still a Ford GT on the grid and even an Ascari last year was awesome. I believe the VLN and a few small European series have benefitted from older GT equipment (the Alpina B6 GT3's are still racing somewhere, if I'm not mistaken) and here in the US, the SCCA has permitted GT3's to enter one of the classes for club racing. NASA also allows GT3's in the 25 Hours of Thunder Hill with a few entering last year.

But unlike the first generation of GT3's, this second gen has been far more prolific in terms of the amount of cars created, so it'll be interesting to see how things go. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Z4's and SLS's hang around in top-tier series for awhile, either, since the SLS hasn't been technically replaced (the GT is in a lower price bracket) and the Z4 is also current (and BMW said they'll continue to support it). Reiter may keep the R-EX going for as long as they can as well. But if that's the case, it may slow sales of new GT3 machinery. Which might cause issues moving forward.

 

[cnd01]

I think the older gen cars will keep racing as long as they are homologated or any regional series says they can be raced like what's going on already as you guys have been saying. I think all it takes is a spec change to render the older models the way of the backmarker in order to encourage sales of the newer cars

 

[TDZdave]

We still have Jaguar in the build process.

And isn't the new GTR GT3 a new car based on the Nismo '14?