The GT2 European Series (formerly the GT Sports Club and Blancpain GT Sports Club), organized by SRO Motorsports Group, is an auto racing series for the SRO GT2 class of grand tourer cars, designed for amateur pay drivers in the FIA Bronze category. This target audience is also known in sportscar as "gentleman drivers".
| Category | Grand tourer |
|---|---|
| Country | International |
| Inaugural season | 2015 |
| Tyre suppliers | Pirelli |
| Drivers' champion |  Anthony Beltoise Henry Hassid |
| Teams' champion |  LP Racing |
| Official website | www |
 Current season | |
The GT Sports Club Europe series was fully suspended in 2020 as a consequence of the global COVID-19 pandemic, and thus no GT2-class competition was held in 2020. The GT2 series was re-established in a significantly different format in 2021, adding a Pro-Am style subclass and Fanatec as the title sponsor; this Fanatec GT2 European Series continued in 2022.
The 2021-onwards GT2 series runs in support of the GT World Challenge Europe weekends and includes Friday practice and qualifying with one race each on Saturday and Sunday.
History
editThe inaugural Blancpain GT Sports Club series in 2015 was aimed at amateur pay drivers, with competition limited to drivers of a grade similar to the FIA Bronze category at the time, and with cars homologated in a number of ways and open to running older chassis. By the end of 2019 it was possible to use any of: FIA GT3 for that season, re-homologated cars from earlier GT3 generations, RACB G3 cars, GTE-spec cars, and Renault Sport Trophy cars, all competing in a single class through a Balance of Performance process and additional Cup Trophys based on driver age or car subclass. In the early seasons Bronze included subcategories Titanium for drivers aged 50-59 and Iron for drivers over 60 years of age;[1] these subcategories are not in use in 2022.
The Sports Club raceday design was originally focused on running lunchtime-to-lunchtime to ease weekend travel and encourage "arrive and drive" entries, with free practice and qualifying sessions on day one, followed by qualifying and main races the following day.[1]
GT Sports Club Europe was suspended in 2020 as a consequence of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The "GT Sports Club" concept was relaunched in 2021 as an umbrella covering a championship built on an also new GT2 class; a sister GT3-only championship with a similar approach as before to running multiple generations of GT3 together; and a non-competitive "GT1 Sports Club" aimed at bringing road-going supercars on track together. These series now support the GT World Challenge Europe calendar.[2]
Champions
edit| Year | Overall | Titanium Cup | Iron Cup | Xtra Cup | Cup Challenge (2015) Cup (2017–) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Max Bianchi | Not held | Martin Lanting | Not held | Wong Chong Yau Runme |
| 2016 | Michał Broniszewski | Martin Lanting | Mauro Casadei Davide Roda Jürgen Smet |
Not held | |
| 2017 | Anthony Pons | Stephen Earle | Dilantha Malagamuwa | Howard Blank | |
| 2018 | Karim Ojjeh | Karim Ojjeh | Stephen Earle | Not held | Not awarded |
| 2019 | Jens Reno Møller | Coach McKansy | Stephen Earle | ||
| Fanatec GT2 European Series | |||||
| Overall | Pro-Am Cup | Am Cup | |||
| 2021 | Anders Fjordbach Mark Patterson |
Christoph Ulrich | |||
| 2022 | Nicolas Saelens Stienes Longin |
Henry Hassid | |||
| 2023 | Henry Hassid | Jan Krabec | |||
References
edit- ^ a b "SRO Motorsports Group introduces GT Sports Club, a new Series exclusively for Bronze drivers". gtsportsclub.com. Archived from the original on November 17, 2015. Retrieved November 15, 2015.
- ^ "First Eight Teams Commit To GT2 European & GT Rebellion Series". www.dailysportscar.com. Retrieved 2024-01-07.
