Gill: GT2 Interest “Very High” for Sports Club America

Photo: Porsche

SRO Motorsports America President and CEO Greg Gill says interest in the new-for-2020 GT2 Sports Club America is “very high” amid the series’ launch and platform’s unofficial debut last month in Spa.

The new sprint series, based on the Blancpain GT Sports Club in Europe, will exclusively feature GT2 machinery in single-driver sprint races on select SRO America weekends next year.

Set to kick off at Virginia International Raceway in June, the five-round season will feature 25 and 40-minute races on each weekend and be open to all SRO-homologated GT2 cars.

A field of 12 Porsche 911 GT2 RS Clubsports took part in the Porsche Motorsport GT2 Supersportscar Weekend, a precursor to the platform’s official first race at the Blancpain GT Sports Club Europe event in Barcelona next month.

According to Gill, who was in attendance in Spa, the GT2 platform has already generated significant interest from customer teams in North America.

Its included longtime World Challenge entrant GMG Racing, which has placed orders for four of the Porsches and raced two of them in the Spa event.

“The interest level is very high right now,” Gill told Sportscar365. “We’re booking the time [in event weekends] in anticipation of that, based on what the manufacturers have told us.

“The cars are available so we’ll go forward with it.”

So far, only the Porsche and the Audi R8 LMS GT2 have been launched for the platform, although SRO Motorsports founder and CEO Stephane Ratel said a third manufacturer, to be unveiled in Barcelona, will also have cars ready for production next year.

Ratel has forecasted an additional three manufacturers for 2020.

With the class reserved exclusively to Bronze-rated drivers, Gill feels that it will serve as good fit within its existing weekends.

“I think someone described it as a great opportunity,” he said. “It fits.

“Where we’ve seen the price escalation in GT3 and where the driving standards and the budgets are so far out of the range of the average gentleman driver and what he or she might want to accomplish.

“GT2 really ticks that box off that: I can have a pro racing experience with likeminded people with high-horsepower cars, really giving an excellent weekend.

“Does that mean we’re going to have 12 cars, does that mean we’re going to have 25 cars? That’s really a function of the market, and we’ll see what that will do and we’ll build it there.”

Porsche has allocated, and already sold all 200 of its GT2 Clubsports, while Head of Audi Sport customer racing Chris Reinke told Sportscar365 that they will supply “any demand that comes up” for its car, which will begin arriving in customers’ hands by the end of this year.

Gill explained they organized the calendar with a June start to “give room” for customer deliveries.

Reinke: GT2 Format “Very Sensible and Very Positive”

Audi’s Reinke, meanwhile, has backed SRO’s global format for GT2, which will also be embraced in Europe and Asia.

The Blancpain GT Sports Club Europe will add GT2 cars on a full-time basis next year, while the GT2 Sports Club Asia will be launched for an initial three-race season. 

“I think it’s very, very sensible and very positive, as [Stephane] has sketched out, a minimum time at the track, maximum driving time in the seat,” Reinke told Sportscar365.

“I think that’s a customer-tailored schedule that should suit the clientele.

“It’s hard to incorporate it onto an existing platform, so therefore I would have prioritized it exactly the same way, rather customer-tailored to the clientele than to integrate.”

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