What impact will FIA GT3 cars have on World Challenge?

 When Pirelli World Challenge announced they would allow full spec FIA GT cars, I knew it would only be a matter of time before things got serious.

 As it stands now, expect for a few drivers, PWC has a very Pro-Am/Club feel to it. 

 Team Cadillac for intents and purposes should be dominating; they have previously when other teams without even close to the resources of Pratt & Miller were forced to build their own cars.

 I place before the court the Hawk Performance Nissan GTR and its generally poor performance/reliability.

 But when Global Motorsport Group, a long-time Porsche supporter moved over to Audi R8's (older FIA spec cars) it proved to be a excellent decision. This season has been very consistent for GMG; winning a few races and I think completing every lap this season. 

 James Sofronas is leading the points going into the final weekend.

 If you saw the entry list going into this weekend it looks very normal, ho-hum actually.

 But when checking for times this morning, guess who was leading the timesheets in yesterday's cancelled practice/qualifying session? 

 Audi R8 LMS factory driver and former Porsche Super Cup Champion, Rene Rast.

 For those that don't know; Rast has been winning races in ADAC GT (German GT3), Blancpain Endurance Series and FIA GT Series, driving the majority of the time for Belgian Audi Club-WRT.

 I've said before with the acceptance of full FIA GT3 cars into World Challenge; Teams that have multi-car efforts like GMG will feature at least one factory driver, who will go for the driver's and manufacturer's championships.

 This ups the ante considerably since the best drivers in the series currently are journeyman driver Randy Pobst, who is popular with the club racer/autocrosser community since that's where he comes from. Former CART/CCWS driver Alex Figge also joins Pobst in the factory supported Volvo S60R.

 While the Caddy team has become the retirement home for ALMS drivers who have lost a step. GM lifer Andy Pilgrim who left (read: forced out) the Corvette program almost a decade ago is joined by current series champion Johnny O'Connell, who was forced out of the Corvette program at the start of the 2011 season.

 Once you understand that, you can see how a Pro-Am driver like James Sofronas who is actually a very good driver for somebody that doesn't do it for a living; can lead the championship with a good reliable car like the Audi. As I said previously GMG was a Porsche team being based not very far from Porsche Motorsport North America which is located about an hour from my house in Huntington Beach.

 They were basically up against cars built by P&M that are somewhere near the overall pace to a FIA GT3 car. The Porsches they were driving were Cup cars with larger 4.0L engines. As I mentioned recently on Racer.com and Sportcars 365; these cars do not have the downforce the factory Caddy or Volvo has and that impacts lap time. Now with that said, a very quick professional driver, who can get the most out of a Porsche, say Pat Long can win with those cars. But expecting Amatur drivers like Ende and Sofranas to compete with them is totally unreasonable.

 That's why I said WC has a club racer feel to it. At various times over its history World Challenge has had factory involvement, so this is nothing new. This will surely to bring up the level of professionalism the series needs to move up in popularity.

 I fully expect GMG to field at least two Audi's next season if not as many as four, but one car will have a factory Audi driver. Because I am fairly confident that TRG-Aston Martin will put Damien Faulkner in a Vantage GT3 for both World Challenge and GT-Daytona.

 I fully expect a real "Sports Car War" to break out in World Challenge...

 Here's a bit of news not everybody heard: Multi-time DTM Champion Bernd Schneider will be running the in the 25 Hours of Thunderhill in Dec. I heard this during the last Blancpain race which his team won to secure the driver's championship for Max Buk. Being a factory Mercedes driver, who do you think is on the entry list for Thunderhill?

 That would be one Tim Pappas, who owns Black Swan Racing, driving a Mercedes SLS AMG GT3.

 I don't think it takes much of a leap to put two and two together.

GT-D will see the most changes in USCR's debt season

 A continued discussion from this post, I hope your enjoying it and find it easy to follow along, I understand it can be confusing at times.

 Now where were we...

 Actually it was suggested by Cory over at Motorsport.com that I shorten my blog post a bit, he believes many readers suffer from ADD. I don't think you can be a sports car racing fan and have ADD, it just wouldn't work.

 Anyway, we'll finish up with the ALMS GTC teams and I'll give you a final count of what the grid will look like next season.

 Last time I talked about the TRG and its switchover from Porsche to Aston Martin. I also talked about Alex Job Racing and the possibility of them switching from Porsche as well.

 If that happens, like it did in 2008 when Porsche was in triage mode and expanded support to Flying Lizard to three cars after Tafel Racing (there's a blast from the recent past huh?) left to join Ferrari (and give them a mighty run to the 2008 GT Championship). Porsche could be again in an uncomfortable and unfamiliar spot in the United States that they are not the prefered brand for endurance sports car racing.

 Especially with Mercedes Benz dominating the Endurance races this season. Bernd Schneider has had an unbelievable string of successes this season. Not only did he win the Nurburgring 24hr race, but the Dubai 24 to open the season, Bathurst 12 hr and finally the Spa 24 a few weeks ago.

 In fact if you don't count Porsche's victory at Le Mans which honestly was a bit tainted by Aston Martin's valiant run and death of Allan Simonsen, Porsche has not won a major international race this season. In fact they may not win any national championships of note this season. At least Manthey is defending International GT Open Champion but they aren't racing in that series this season, to focus on WEC and the factory Porsche effort.

 That just means there are several competitive marks/brands and all of them are interested in the merged series next year. In fact the only momentum towards next season seems to be in the slowest class, GT-D.

 With that in mind, where does that leave Flying Lizard, Patrick Dempsey and JDX Racing?

 I think we're about to see how deep Seth Neimans loyalty runs toward Porsche. Since they were not picked to run the Porsche factory effort in the WEC and Porsche was not going to release the 991 based car to customers yet, Flying Lizard severed their ties and for 2013 moved down to GTC where ironically you are forced to run Porsches. That mean losing the services of not just Jorg Bergmeister but also Patrick Long, as he scrambled to find work and landed rides with Park Place in Grand Am and Core Autosport in the ALMS.

 As the preeminent Porsche Semi-works team since 2007, it would be hard to imagine them going another direction.

 For Dempsey-Del Piero, entering GTC was viewed as a stopgap measure to keep his team together while Mazda sorted out its SkyActiv Diesel program that was originally slated to be installed in Dempsey's Lola Coupe. But that was not to be as the birth of the SkyActiv racing engine was difficult and that part of the program with Dempsey was scrubbed. They decided instead to reskin Speed Source's Mazda RX-8's to make them Mazda 6's since that was the car the SkyActiv diesel production engine was going to debut in.

 It was a failure from the start and thankfully will be shelved next season. But what does that mean for Patrick Dempsey for USCR and Le Mans?  If GX lap times are any indication, I don't think that is the direction they are going even if they go back to P2.

 He could just opt to stay in GT-D and this is where I believe a few Cup cars might make their way onto the GT-D grid next season.

 JDX Racing has no connections to Porsche but could be in line for one of the many Semi-works programs slated to be in GT-D next season. I know Audi, Bentley, SRT, Nissan and Benz are actively seeking partners (you buy the car, they supply the pro drivers  and tech support).

 The same goes for N-GT, even if they run in Yokohama Cup as well, that doesn't not signal any allegiance to the brand.

 My prediction is that one of these teams will not return for 2014 and that if there are less than 3 teams that want to run Cup cars next season, then there will be no Cup cars next season.

 No reason to balance what is possibly a of minimum of ten GT3 cars to one or two Cup cars

 As it stands I have at least 10 confirmed entries in GT-D, all FIA or upgraded Grand Am GT3 cars (Fall-Line, AJR, Black Swan, AIM, Scuderia Corsa & TRG-Aston Martin) based on present car count and historical norms.

 Its likely more and here's why -

•  Fall Line has fallen back (no pun) to a one car effort (was two) in order to continue to develop the cars for next season (committed to USCR and GT-D). Its likely they will return with a two car effort and support from Audi (drivers/tech support). +1
• Black Swan hasn't made it official yet but has expressed interest in at least a partial USCR schedule next season. +1
• Peter LeSaffre (Green Hornet) has sold his SLS GT3 according to John Dagys. An announcement is expected soon +1
• Global Motorsports Group (GMG) has competed in the ALMS GTC class before, they switched to Audi R8's this season in World Challenge, so I am going to assume we will see them a few times next season +1
• Ben Keating is first buyer of the soon to be built SRT Viper GT3 car +1
• Nissan is likely to enter a car for its current US GT Academy Winner Bryan Heitkotter as it has been doing with its other drivers in Blancpain and FIA GT +1
• Bentley is actively looking for partners (semi works) +1
• Elton Julian's Dragonspeed team has a Audi R8 LMS Ultra. Given Julian's history in the ALMS and the fact that he runs a LMPC car for somebody, I'm sure he would like to enter his Audi into GT-D

 Out of those seven, six are likely full season entries, well GMG is the likely part-time entry focusing on World Challenge.

 That means of the current total of 18 cars in GTC/Rolex GT combined, we'll have a field of at least 17-18 regular season entries, that could easily double for Sebring, Petit, Daytona and Watkins Glen.

We'll just have to see what happens...