COTA Set to Stage Three-Hour GT4 Enduro in 2024

Photo: Brian Cleary/SRO

Circuit of The Americas appears set to stage a three-hour enduro for Pirelli GT4 America next year following competitor feedback in recent months according to SRO America President and CEO Greg Gill.

The SRO America-run series, which typically consists of two 60-minute races over each weekend, will hold its first endurance race in 2024 at the home of the Formula 1 U.S. Grand Prix.

It comes after initial plans were outlined during SRO America’s annual ‘State of the Sport’ address at Road America in August.

“We have not made a formal announcement on that yet but what we have talked about privately with the teams is that it’s going to follow a very similar format to what we do in British GT,” Gill told Sportscar365.

“It would be a two-driver format, and you can look at British GT as a good example of what that could look like.

“I think you’re going to see something in the three-hour range, time-wise.”

Gill said the race length and format has been developed with feedback from competitors, which have voiced the desire to have more than one endurance race.

However, it appears that SRO America will stick with a single extended-length event in 2024 before considering any further changes to its calendar in 2025.

“In the interest of keeping the ruleset simple and for existing teams, we’re doing two drivers and three hours looks like the final amount that will be settled on,” Gill said.

“We’re doing the 2024 sporting regs this week and then sending them out to teams for their feedback. So we’ll get their final thoughts on it.

“The positive [development] that teams have proposed to us is that they want to do more than one longer race.

“We want to start very gradually. We think COTA is a great location for this. We’ll certainly listen to the teams and see what they want to do most.

“If we can wrap things up and count on it for 2024, it would be a longer race at COTA for GT4 and that would be the only one for this year, unless the paddock feels differently.”

When asked if he could envision GT4 America eventually being split up into an SprintX and Endurance series, similar to the Sprint and SprintX format utilized in previous years, Gill indicated there’s been minimal interest in that concept.

“I’ve had a handful of teams come to me and say, ‘Boy, I really liked that format and being able to have that,'” he said.

“The key word is a ‘handful’ of teams. Before we’d do that, it would have to be the majority of the paddock saying, ‘We have the sophistication and the drivers that want to do this.’

“Right now, we’re really working on continued driver improvement. I think from the 2022 season to the 2023 season, even though we saw more than our fair share of yellows and crashes that we would have liked, compared to last year, 2023 was much better.

“We want to build on that for 2024 and really give the teams a level… Before we look at increased amount of track time or endurance runs, etc, we want to see the continued upgrading of driver ability and outcome on the track.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John