GT Sport is introducing a key novelty in 2012: a Winter Series of two events, to take place in Portimão and Le Castellet next February and March, involving both GT cars and F3. The Winter Series will take place in conjunction with the first two of the three collective testing sessions of the International GT Open and the European F3 Open scheduled for the winter season (the third one being in Barcelona), whose calendar is as follows:
· Thu 16 (test) and Fri 17 February (test + WS 1) at the Autódromo do Algarve, Portimão (PT)
· Fri 2 (test) and Sat 3 March (test + WS 2) at Circuit HTTT Paul Ricard, Le Castellet (FR)
· Thu 15 and Fri 16 March (test) at Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona (ES)
These events will obviously be non-championship races, completely independent from the International GT Open, The Spanish / Iber GT and the European F3 Open . They will have their own sporting rules and timetable, which will be communicated separately. The number of participants will be limited.
The principle is based on the following format:
· Day 1: Private tests (around 3.5 hrs each for GTs and F3)
· Day 2: Private tests (1.5 hrs for F3 and 45 min for GTs)
Qualifying (2 sessions of 20 min for GTs, 1 session of 20 min for F3)
Race (2 of 50 min each for GTs, 1 of 35 min for F3)
With regard to GTs, will be allowed to compete in this Winter Series GT2 and GT3 cars, as well as cars from the GT Light category of the Spanish GT Championship and cars coming from GT mono-brand trophies such as Ferrari Challenges and Porsche Cups. Regarding F3, chassis F312, F308 and F306 will be eligible.
It is worth noting that Winter Series are not a novelty for the European F3 Open, as they already took place once, in 2004 in Albacete: in that occasion, Race 1 was won by Nico Rosberg, now a confirmed star in F.1, ahead of Borja García and Álvaro Barba, with the German winning again in Race 2, on García and Andy Zuber.
