Regulations
FIA currently defines several categories of GT cars with the top two specifications being GT1, or Grand Touring Cars, and GT2, or Series Grand Touring Cars. Each category has an annual driver champion, team champion, and manufacturer champion. Both categories are based on production road car designs, which must be produced in a minimum quantity of 25 examples to qualify. Both types may undergo significant modifications from the road car they are based on, but GT1 allows the use of exotic materials, better aerodynamics, larger brakes, wider tires and larger engine admission restrictors.
For the 2006 season, the FIA created a new class called GT3. GT3 cars are even closer to their production counterparts and are very simply racetrack prepared with the essentials (rollcages for safety, stripped interiors, race spec fuel tanks, etc.). All cars are performance balanced together via different weights, restrictors, tyre pressures etc. Prestigious motorsports makes such as Aston Martin, Chevrolet, Dodge, Lamborghini, Ascari and Maserati take part in FIA GT3 European Championship, a support series in some rounds of the main championship.
The FIA defines a GT car as "an open or closed automobile which has no more than one door on each side and a minimum of two seats situated one on each side of the longitudinal centre line of the car; these two seats must be crossed by the same transversal plane. This car must be able to be used perfectly legally on the open road, and adapted for racing on circuits or closed courses."
All races in the FIA GT Championship were of endurance type, a full race distance lasting a minimum of 500 km or a maximum of three hours, with the exception of the Spa 24 Hours and the exhibition Mil Milhas Brasileiras, which is run over a thousand miles and was planned to be a round of the championship in 2007. However, with the release of the 2007 FIA GT Championship season schedule and rules, the FIA GT series becomes more of a sprint race event, with all races being a maximum of 2 hours with the exception of the Spa 24 Hours.
Read more about this topic: FIA GT Championship
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