SRO GT Cup Attracts Bumper Entry for Inaugural Races

The SRO GT Cup, a new category for GT4 cars in China, has attracted a bumper entry of 33 cars for its inaugural races this weekend at Shanghai International Circuit.

Announced last December, the SRO GT Cup is a single-driver series with a calendar made up of seven races across four rounds, the first two of which feature on the support bill for this weekend’s Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix at Shanghai.

Further rounds will then be held at Zhuhai and on the new Beijing Street Circuit in support of this year’s GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS event in October, while the Greater Bay Area GT4 Cup in Macau serves as the finale in November.

No fewer than 10 manufacturers will be represented at Shanghai for what SRO claims to be the largest grid of GT4 cars to have ever been assembled on Asian soil.

Mercedes-AMG is the best represented marque with seven cars, followed by Porsche with six and Toyota with four, while the grid also features machinery from Audi, BMW, Ginetta, Lotus, McLaren, Aston Martin and KTM.

All bar Ginetta, Lotus and KTM are registered for SRO’s GT4 Manufacturer Ranking, which spans nine different SRO-run GT4 series across the globe.

Expected to be among the main contenders are the Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVOs of Wang Hao, a champion in the China Endurance Championship and Han Lichao, who won last year’s Greater Bay Area GT4 Cup, as well as 2021 Porsche Carrera Cup Asia champion Lu Wenlong, who will drive a Lotus Emira GT4 for Pegasus Racing.

Two thirty-minute races will be held, one on Saturday and one on Sunday, following a pair of free practice sessions on Friday and qualifying on Saturday morning.