The 2009 and final (in current format) FIA GT Championship will begin on 3rd May at Silverstone, GB
Races
1 3 May Silverstone
2 16 May Adria
3 21 Jun Oschersleben
4 26 Jul Spa-Francorchamps
5 30 Aug Bucharest
6 20 Sep Algarve
7 11 Oct Zolder
8 22 Nov San Luis
Roll of HonourGT1 (known as GT 1999-2004)
1997 - Bernd Schneider
1998 - Klaus Ludwig/Ricardo Zonta
1999 - Olivier Beretta/Karl Wendlinger
2000 - Julian Bailey/Jamie Campbell-Walter
2001 - Christophe Bouchut/Jean-Philippe Belloc
2002 - Christophe Bouchut
2003 - Thomas Biagi/Matteo Bobbi
2004 - Fabrizio Gollin/Luca Cappellari
2005 - Gabriele Gardel
2006 - Michael Bartels/Andrea Bertolini
2007 - Thomas Biagi
2008 - Michael Bartels/Andrea Bertolini
GT2 (known as NGT 2000-2004)
1997 - Justin Bell
1998 - Olivier Beretta/Pedro Lamy
2000 - Christophe Bouchut/Patrice Goueslard
2001 - Christian Pescatori/David Terrien
2002 - Stephane Ortelli
2003 - Stephane Ortelli/Marc Lieb
2004 - Sascha Maassen/Lucas Luhr
2005 - Marc Lieb/Mike Rockenfeller
2006 - Jaime Melo Jr
2007 - Dirk Muller/Toni Vilander
2008 - Gianmaria Bruni/Toni Vilander
Wikipedia wrote:
In 1997, due to increasing interest from manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and Panoz, the FIA took over control of the expanding BPR Global GT Series, standardizing the race-length at 500 km instead of the usual four hours, liberalizing the technical regulations and leaving commercial exploitation in the hands of one of BPR's founders, Stéphane Ratel, who managed to get TV support from the pan-European TV station Eurosport. The new manufacturers built "homologation specials", racing-bred cars that took full advantage of the new rules, to build quasi-prototypes with very limited production runs of 25 cars. Chrysler, Lister and Marcos, not wanting to accompany the cost escalation, moved down to the GT2 class.
This proved to be the wisest move, as Mercedes completely dominated the new category and the other manufacturers pulled out after the end of the 1998 season. This left Chrysler's Viper to become the dominating car in the series, with the aging Porsche 993 GT2 and the Lister Storm providing a certain degree of competition.
However, there was no lower inexpensive category for amateur drivers, and this led to the creation of the N-GT class in 2000. While the manufacturer field in the main class blossomed, the new category became swamped with Porsches and Ferraris, but lower running costs meant both classes enjoyed a balanced number of entries. In order to boost the championship's status, the SRO added the 24 Hours of Spa, previously a touring car race, to the calendar, where it became the series' most important race. The FIA also banned official manufacturer involvement, although certain teams had preferential treatment, with Porsche establishing a "round robin" system.
After the end of the 2004 season, the FIA renamed the classes GT1 and GT2, and somewhat liberalized the GT1 regulations, allowing "supercars". While this was made to accommodate the Saleen S7, the biggest beneficiary was the purpose-built Maserati MC12, which lead the FIA to impose aerodynamic limitations on the Italian car. However, thanks to a weight penalty system, the fight for the championship is protected from more domineering cars. The level of competition remains tight, with gentlemen drivers managing to fight for the wins with professional drivers, some of them with Formula 1 experience.