Photo: BritishGT.com
British GT Championship Manager Benjamin Franassovici was in an up-beat mood at the launch of the 2018 Championship season, held at Donington Park on Thursday Match 8.
“We are very happy to reveal our final entry list.” Said Franassovici at a packed press conference held at the now-MSV owned venue. “Over the months we’ve been gradually revealing all our entries and we have exceeded our expectations. The quality of the GT3 and GT4 grid we have today is extremely easy to see. Last year and during the off-season we worked hard to build this grid and I thank my team for making this happen.”
“(The success) is also due to the trust of the teams,” said Franassovici. “They can see that the platform is stable. It’s been so for many years since 2010 and the grid has gradually increased in numbers, which was needed, and then in quality and then in diversity and then we continued to make sure that stability was there.”
Franassovici was quick to praise tyre partner Pirelli.
“In 2016 Pirelli came on board and this added value as it allowed the grid to go up a level again. It also helped us to make our BoP even more accurate. This is due to the hard work of all our teams around the world, with Pirelli Tyres, making and creating the BoP, which is world-renowned. So we are very pleased.”
“A couple of years ago people said that GT3 was dead and we have proved that this is not the case. The grid we have of 13 cars has exceeded our expectations. The quality of the cars, the pairings and the factory drivers has all been very pleasing. What we’ve achieved also in the past two years is public attendance. This has grown at all our tracks and this was seen at the Silverstone 500 which was a big success last year with large crowds and we will continue this push with Silverstone.”
“So we’re very happy,’” concluded the Championship Manager. “The entry list was released this morning. We’ve announced the remaining entries, which have been entered for a while. Before we took our break in December we had thirty paid entries, which is a sign that people believe in our platform and they are happy to sign up. Not many series can claim that so we are continuing to push in that direction.”
The 2018 British GT Championship opens at Oulton Park on March 31 – April 2.
