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–present)
Drivers' champion	Jules Gounon; Timur Boguslavskiy; Raffaele Marciello
Teams' champion	AKKodis ASP Team
Official website	www.gt-world-challenge-europe.com
	Current season

The Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup powered by AWS, formerly for sponsorship reasons 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 SRO Motorsports 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 FIA World Endurance Championship which were using GTE cars and Le Mans Prototypes (now GT3 and Le Mans Hypercars). The series was primarily sponsored by Swiss watchmaker Blancpain, and the company's Lamborghini Super Trofeo series serve 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 for the 2020 season.

Format

Audi R8 LMS during Blancpain Endurance Series season

Audi R8 LMS Ultra from W Racing Team during the 2014 Blancpain Endurance Series round at the Nürburgring

Nissan GT-R GT3 driven by the 2015 Champions Alex Buncombe, Wolfgang Reip and Katsumasa Chiyo at the 2015 24 Hours of Spa

Mercedes AMG GT3 from Black Falcon at the 2018 24 Hours of Spa

The Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo driven by Jules Gounon, Daniel Juncadella and Raffaele Marciello that won the 2022 Overall Championship

The GT World Challenge Europe 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 (GT3 Am). 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–present)	Silver Cup	Gold Cup	Pro-Am Cup	Gentlemen Trophy (2011–2014) Am Cup (2015–2020) Bronze Cup (2022-present)	GT4
2011	Greg Franchi	Not held	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
2020	Alessandro Pier Guidi	Patrick Kujala Alex MacDowall Frederik Schandorff		Chris Goodwin Alexander West	Stéphane Tribaudini
2021	Alessandro Pier Guidi Nicklas Nielsen Côme Ledogar	Alex Fontana Ricardo Feller Rolf Ineichen		Chris Froggatt Jonathan Hui	Not held
2022	Jules Gounon Daniel Juncadella Raffaele Marciello	Benjamin Goethe Thomas Neubauer Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer	Oliver Millroy Frederik Schandorff Brendan Iribe	Louis Machiels Andrea Bertolini Stefano Costantini	Reema Juffali Tim Müller Valentin Pierburg George Kurtz
Year	Pro Cup (2011–2015) Overall (2016–present)	Gold Cup	Silver Cup	Bronze Cup	Pro-Am Cup	GT4
2023	Jules Gounon Timur Boguslavskiy Raffaele Marciello	Nicolas Baert Maxime Soulet	Benjamín Hites Clemens Schmid Glenn van Berlo	Eddie Cheever III Chris Froggatt Jonathan Hui	Alex Fontana Ivan Jacoma Nicolas Leutwiler	Not held (discontinued)

Teams

Year	Pro Cup (2011–2015) Overall (2016–present)	Silver Cup	Gold Cup	Pro-Am Cup	Gentlemen Trophy (2011–2014) Am Cup (2015–2020) Bronze Cup (2022-present)	GT4
2011	Belgian Audi Club	Not held	Not held	Vita4One	Ruffier Racing	RJN Motorsport
2012	Belgian Audi Club Team WRT			AF Corse	Saintéloc 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
2020	AF Corse	Barwell Motorsport		Garage 59	CMR
2021	Team WRT	Emil Frey Racing		Sky - Tempesta Racing	Not held
2022	AKKodis ASP Team	Team WRT	Inception Racing	SPS Automotive Performance	SPS Automotive Performance
Year	Pro Cup (2011–2015) Overall (2016–present)	Gold Cup	Silver Cup	Bronze Cup	Pro-Am Cup	GT4
2023	AKKodis ASP Team	Comtoyou Racing	GRT Grasser Racing Team	Sky – Tempesta Racing	Car Collection Motorsport

References

^ "The new GT Endurance Series in detail!". planetlemans.com. 2010-11-03. Archived from the original on 2010-11-12. Retrieved 2010-11-03.
^ "2012 Blancpain Endurance Series Presentation (english)". SRO. 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-03-21. 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. Archived from the original on 2010-11-12. Retrieved 2010-11-03.

[2012_BES_Presentation-2] "2012 Blancpain Endurance Series Presentation (english)". SRO. 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-03-21. Retrieved 2012-03-20. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

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