WHAT IS IT?
British GT is a nine round, seven event national GT championship, with races of one, two and three hours in duration. In 2020 around 13 GT3 cars from marques such as Aston Martin, McLaren, Mercedes, Bentley, Nissan and Lamborghini, will compete to win various title, namely Drivers’, Teams’, Pro/Am, Silver Cup, Silver/Am and Blancpain Gentleman Driver Trophy. Competing during the same events is a large grid of GT4 cars, all vying for their own set of titles.
British GT is a Pro/Am championship so each car has an amateur (Am) and a professional (Pro) driver, according to the official FIA rankings. The #99 Beechdean car is raced by Andrew Howard (FIA Bronze) and Ross Gunn (FIA Gold).
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EVENT FORMAT
British GT race weekends typically run Saturday-Sunday. The exceptions to these are Oulton Park (Saturday and Bank Holiday Monday) and Spa-Francorchamps (Friday/Saturday).
Day 1
60mins Free Practice 1
60mins Free Practice 2,
4 x 10 minute Qualifying Sessions - GT3 AM, GT3 Pro, GT4 Am, GT4 Pro
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Day 2
10mins Warm-up,
60/120/180mins Race 1
60mins Race 2 (Oulton Park and Snetterton only)
QUALIFYING
There are always four 10-minute qualifying segments determined by driver grading and class…1x GT3 Am, 1x GT3 Pro, 1x GT4 Am, 1x GT4 Pro…but their significance depends on the number of races being held that weekend.
2x 1-hour races: each car’s Am and Pro driver’s best individual time will determine the grid for Race 1 and Race 2, respectively.
1x 2 or 3-hour races: each of the Am and Pro’s fastest lap times are combined to determine the starting order. The lowest combined time takes pole for each class.
Classes are split, meaning GT3 and GT4 cars do not run at the same time during qualifying. Drivers must complete two timed laps (not including in and out laps).
THE RACE
RACE START
For the 1hr races the Ams start race one and the Pros start race two. Ams always start races lasting two hours or more.
PIT-STOP AND DRIVE-TIME REGULATIONS
In races lasting one hour the top three finishers in each class from the previous round must respectively serve an additional 10, 7, 5 second success penalty during their mandatory pit-stop.
During races lasting two hours or longer the top three finishers in each class from the previous round must respectively serve an additional 20, 15 and 10-second success penalty during their mandatory pit-stop.
There is a mandatory driver change, no matter how long the races, as well as minimum/maximum drive time.
Competitors must make at least one pit-stop during all British GT races. During the Silverstone 500, the season's only three-hour race, competitors must make three mandatory pit stops.
All cars are subject to a minimum pit-stop time. This starts as the car crosses the pit-in line and ends as it triggers the timing beam at pit-out. Anyone found to be under this time must serve a stop/go penalty to the same value as they were under time (eg 10secs too fast in the pits equals a 10secs stop/go penalty).
During one-hour races the minimum time a driver can spend behind the wheel is 25 minutes. This minimum time rises to 60 minutes for Am/Starting drivers in races lasting two hours.
Failure to adhere to these time scales will result in a stop/go penalty or additional time added post-race.
