Blancpain GT Endurance Cup Brought into GT World Challenge

Photo: Dirk Bogaerts/SRO

The Blancpain GT World Challenge moniker will be extended to include all five rounds of the current Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup next year.

It means that the new GT World Challenge name, introduced this year, will include endurance races in Europe and sprint GT3 races in Europe, North America and Asia.

It will also, by extension, include new endurance races in Asia and North America with the Shanghai 888 and Indianapolis 8 Hour which are set to be included in the schedules of their respective local GT3 sprint series.

The rest of the GT World Challenge Europe schedule remains fairly similar to this year’s, although the Nürburgring and Barcelona rounds have swapped sub-series, with the Endurance Cup finale set to return to the German track and Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya set to run the final Sprint round.

This was the initial plan this year until it swapped back to alleviate a clash between the Nürburgring round and the FIA World Endurance Championship opener at Silverstone.

The test days for the Total 24 Hours of Spa have been moved earlier to June 16-17, the Tuesday and Wednesday after the 24 Hours of Le Mans, meanwhile.

Monza, Silverstone and Paul Ricard will host the first Endurance races ahead of Spa and Nürburgring, while the Sprint calendar includes Brands Hatch, Zandvoort, Misano, Budapest and Barcelona.

Shanghai 888 as Part of GT World Challenge Asia

The SIC 888 endurance race has moved under SRO sanctioning and will serve as the sixth and final round of GT World Challenge Asia in October.

Unlike last year’s inaugural round, which was 888 km in distance, the GT World Challenge Asia round will be a three-hour race.

The remainder of the schedule is similar to the current one, with rounds at Sepang, Fuji, Suzuka, Yeongam and a TBA round in China.

Overall, it has made for 23 non-clashing events running as GT World Challenge, between the three continental sprint series, five European endurance rounds and new enduros at Indianapolis and Shanghai.

2020 Blancpain GT World Challenge Europe Schedule:

Mar. 12-13 – Paul Ricard test days
Apr. 17-19 – Monza (Endurance)
May 2-3 – Brands Hatch (Sprint)
May 9-10 – Silverstone (Endurance)
May 29-30 – Paul Ricard (Endurance)
June 16-17 – Spa test days
June 26-28 – Zandvoort (Sprint)
July 3-5 – Misano (Sprint)
July 23-26 – 24H Spa (Endurance)
Sept. 4-6 – Nürburgring (Endurance)
Sept. 25-27 – Budapest (Sprint)
Oct. 9-11 – Barcelona (Sprint)

2020 Blancpain GT World Challenge Asia Schedule:

Mar. 28-29 – Sepang
May 23-24 – Fuji
June 20-21 – Suzuka
July 11-12 – Yeongam
Sept. 12-13 – China (TBC)
Oct. TBC – Shanghai 888

Jake Kilshaw

Jake Kilshaw is a UK-based journalist. He is a graduate of Politics and International Relations.