MN’s columnist-at-large is buzzing about the impetus behind GT3 in 2024
Seldom has a GT season offered so much. Yes, I know that sportscar fans will point to last year’s Hypercar debut as a massively significant season, which it was, but the landscape of GT racing has changed in recent months. The inclusion of GT3 into the World Endurance Championship was perhaps inevitable. After all, it was a massive global success and the cost of the ACO’s GT3+ equivalent, GTE, was largely aimed at manufacturers only and proved to be unsustainable. So now we have GT3 in the FIA WEC and, crucially, at Le Mans which not only attracts drivers but teams as well.
As much as drivers are busy making announcements about a GT3 programme with the long-term aim being to race at La Sarthe, so are some teams such as Barwell Motorsport. But the season ahead will look rather different for myriad reasons, and leave the door open for a variety of winners.
For example, Jerome Policand’s Autosport Promotion team, ASP, has mopped up title after title with Mercedes-AMG over the last few seasons, and such has been its strike rate that it has been recruited to run the new Lexus WEC programme. The Lexus brand has been winning in GTD in the IMSA-run stateside championship and Emil Frey Racing ran GT3 cars in the SRO-run GT World Challenge Europe, but to be in a World championship is a different kettle of cod altogether and Policand’s team should be equal to the task. Watch this space.
However, the story doesn’t end there.
Take Policand’s steamroller out of GT World Challenge Europe, or GTWCE for space’s sake, and suddenly the Mercedes-AMG landscape changes: 2 Seas Motorsport joins the championship to take on Mercedes powerhouse Haupt Racing Team and, although drivers are yet to be announced, expect a number of factory drivers to pepper the entry lists.
The point is, though, that with different teams running the cars, some drivers being moved to the DTM, or in the case of allconquering Raffaele Marciello switching to BMW, things will look mighty different in the Mercedes-AMG camp. And that’s a good thing isn’t it? Different winners, different driver combinations, different results. With five endurance and five sprint races, GTWCE should be wide open.
And, of course, the British GT championship looks even stronger. We say this every year, but the championship goes from strength to strength. Think back a decade or more and the days of Allan Simonsen and Matt Griffin going toe-to-toe was a major event.
Since then, we’ve had Marciello, Jules Gounon, Marvin Kirchhoefer, Rob Bell as factory drivers plus others and even Jenson
Button on a BGT grid. This year, Maxi Gotz joins the ranks and will be fascinating to watch. He has limited knowledge of British circuits, but he is a class act and should fly.
Pole at Oulton Park? Fiver on it…
And another fascination of the season will be Adam Smalley aboard the spectacularliveried Duckhams-backed McLaren of
Garage 59. Smalley, Porsche Carrera Cup GB titlist remember, will be one to watch although it will be a different car from the rear-engined 911s he is used to. Smalley is a very capable pedaller and against some of the best GT3 drivers around, it will be fascinating to see how he scrubs up. With Shaun Balfe as his co-driver, results should come.
Now, that steers me to another point.
Garage 59 suffered a touch last year when co-team owner Alexander West accrued so many Behavioural Warning Points (BWPs) to earn a penalty. The team was unamused, the race director Peter Daly unrepentant. After all, speeding in the pitlane earned a penalty so what was he to do? Well, behind the scenes the conversation has continued and for 2024 BWPs have been removed for speeding in the pitlane and the threshold to award grid penalties has been increased. Good or bad? What you don’t want is to discourage the Am driver, or billpayer in many cases, and they are more likely to transgress than their Pro driver. But to take penalties away from speeding? Let’s see…
Frankly, though, British GT looks for an epic season. And I could have written that every season for the last five, maybe 10. The cars are stunning, the quality of driver very high and the live-streamed and oft-on Sky Sports F1 coverage gets better every season too.
Bring it on! GT racing is set for a major shuffle this year. See you at Oulton on Easter Monday…