GT Endurance Racing

Maybe there are some Motorsport enthusiasts here and if so I hope you guys know this weekend is THE race weekend ! Total 24h of SPA Francorchamps is, together with the 24h du Mans and 24h of Nürburgring the ultimate endurance racing challenge for top notch teams.



Some history about endurance and SPA Francorchamps : after the cancellation of the FIA GT championship in 2009 there were some dark clouds gathering over Spa, but a solution was at hand: from 2011 the Total 24 Hours of Spa became the headliner of the Blancpain Endurance Series, a new initiative of the SRO Motorsports Goup. The new championship is reserved for GT3-cars and has an enormous success, resulting in 60-car starting grids. In 2015 SRO creates the Blancpain GT Series, combining endurance and sprint races. The Total 24 Hours of Spa remains the blue chip event of the new series, and sees its status confirmed when in 2016 it is included in the new Intercontinental GT Challenge, the first truly global GT3 championship.



This year 63 GT3 cars are competing during 24 hours in 3 different groups. The current GT3 cars are :

Porsche 991 Cup
Porsche 991 GT3 R
Ferrari 488 GT3
Lamborghini Huracan GT3
McLaren 650 S GT3
Jaguar GT3
BMW M6 GT3
Aston Martin V12 GT3
Mercedes-AMG GT3
Audi R8 LMS
Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3

I have had a chance to drive on the SPA Francorchamps track myself during 5 or 6 track days and I really believe this circuit is one of the most beautiful in Europe. One of the most dangerous as well. For me those guys are really incredible... amazing how they manage to keep concentrated and full throttle during relays of one or two hours... especially during the night.



If you like Motorsport, and especially if you have never watched an endurance race, I strongly recommend to take some time and join the LIVE broadcast on Dailymotion. The whole 24h race is being broadcasted live with comments in french and english :

French Live broadcast : http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5ux8iy
English Live broadcast : http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5ux86z

The race started on Saturday at 16:30 (local time) and, at the moment I write this post, 19h30 of race are still ahead !



Enjoy the live show and don't hesitate to leave your comments if you love endurance racing, too 😀

Also quite impressive, live onboard cameras : http://www.24hoursofspa.com/live-plus

Most do not work anymore as the cars are have been destroyed in accidents... 🙁 (no drivers have been injured) Only the Bentley #8 and the Lamborghini #63 are still in the race.

Quite possible, I've only been on European tracks + Abu Dhabi, hence can't talk about Sebring @Foo2rama

Yeah this video is well known - this is how a vintage Porsche must be driven - always a pleasure to watch it again, thanks for posting 👍 but nothing comparable to the chassis and handling guys have in GT3 nowadays 😀

An incredible race.

The performance balance puts the cars to a similar level and the result is really amazing :

- 36 out of 63 cars hit a lap time in the same second during the qualifiers
- 6 cars finish the 24h race with less than 1 lap as time difference (less than 2min30)
- less than 1 minute between the winner and the 3rd after 24 hours

This means only the drivers, the balls of steel and the teams can make the difference 👍

I think this was the most exciting and incredible 24h of Spa Francorchamps since the beginning of this format (2011), superb, I've spent 16 hours out of 24h watching the live broadcast 🥰 can't wait for the 2018 race now 😁

I've almost spit my tea 😁 have to agree here but they aren't bad in this series and I don't believe they pull the others down to get balanced. Those cars have only the stock appearance, at the end 😀

How about a Jaguar GT3? 😜

And if you want to laugh too, next year there might be a newcomer from Japan. Just google Toyota Prius GT300 😗