A Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 on the Nürburgring Nordschleife in 2010. This is the car type Heiko Neumann and Team Motopark ran to the Am Gen II title; it is not their car. (Photo: Stefan Fliß / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0)
Heiko Neumann had the Am Gen II title locked up before the lights went out on Sunday in Barcelona, because his closest rival’s Ferraris couldn’t run that day under an amended timetable. Then he went out and won the race overall anyway, passing Mark Cole’s Audi with about six minutes left. Not a bad way to close the first season of the GT3 Revival Series, a championship built on cars the headlines forgot about, now with a calendar, a rulebook and something to win.
If you only follow the headline series, you’ve probably missed it. That’s what this column is for. The series is a joint project of SRO Motorsports Group and Peter Auto, and its premise is blunt: the first eight years of GT3 are now old enough to count as history.
The category that was supposed to be cheap
GT3 was unveiled on 2 December 2005 at a press conference in Monte-Carlo, after Stéphane Ratel pitched the concept to the FIA in November 2004. The pitch was a cheaper formula where many road-car-based models could compete on equal terms, with amateurs encouraged and top professionals largely kept out. Running costs were projected at about a third of a GT2 car’s, and Peter Wright, the FIA’s technical advisor, led the balancing work. The category’s first European championship started five months later at Silverstone with 44 cars and eight models in the mix, from the Ascari KZ1R to the Dodge Viper Coupe. SRO tells that story in its own GT3 at 20 retrospective, which also notes a 75-car entry for the 2025 24 Hours of Spa.
Balance of Performance is the thing everybody argues about in GT3 today. (For a current example of how a GT3 weekend plays out under BoP, see our look at Max Verstappen’s GT3 scorecard at Portimão.) The Revival Series takes the same machinery back to where it started.
How the rulebook works
Per the series’ own rules announcement, eligible cars were homologated between 2006 and 2013. Gen I covers 2006 to 2009, Gen II covers 2010 to 2013, and four classes run at once: Pro-Am and Am in each generation. Gold and Silver drivers can race Pro-Am when paired with a Bronze; in Am, two Bronzes can share a car or one can race solo. SRO manages the BoP, as it did in period, and every car runs Pirelli tyres, with a set number of new sets per round and unlimited wets. A standard round has two 50-minute races.
The amateur-first design is the whole trick. For a parallel at the top end of the sport, see our story on the amateurs who already hold 2027 Le Mans tickets.
A grid with real names on it
The five-round calendar rode on established support bills: Paul Ricard, Spa Classic, Le Mans Classic Legend, the Nürburgring and Barcelona. By Spa Classic the series had an expanded 44-car grid. At Le Mans Classic Legend the Am Gen II class alone numbered 28 cars, and three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti made his series debut in a Ferrari 458 (a name that also turns up in our Las Vegas 2011 history piece).
The series’ opening-round report singled out Nicki Thiim, who had two cars on the entry list that he drove in period, and named Christopher Haase, Marvin Kirchhöfer, Maxime Martin and Luca Stolz among the contemporary drivers with former machinery on the grid. For the finale, Ortelli Racing made its Pro-Am debut with Stéphane Ortelli, a Le Mans and Spa 24 Hours winner, and David Hallyday.
The season in five rounds
Paul Ricard (11–12 April). Jim Pla and Jean-Luc Beaubelique’s Storic and Race Cars Ferrari 458 took the series’ first Pro-Am win in Race 1, with Pla passing stablemate Benjamin Ricci in the final minutes. Ricci won Race 2 overall and in Am after Beaubelique ran wide on the penultimate lap. The series’ report put the crowd at about 40,000, at an event shared with GT World Challenge Europe.
Spa Classic (22–24 May). Race 1 started at 21:25 and ran into darkness before a red flag after eight laps, following two Audi R8 LMS Ultra crashes at Pouhon and Blanchimont. Dumarey’s Aston Martin won Pro-Am, and Jonathan Mitchell’s Scott Sport Aston swept Am Gen II. Beaubelique’s Race 2 win was his third Pro-Am victory from four races, with Andrew Bentley’s Nissan GT-R just tenths behind (full report).
Le Mans Classic Legend (4–5 July). Ricci won Race 1 after Mitchell looped at the final corner about ten minutes from the flag. Mitchell took Race 2 with an undercut, pitting a lap before Neumann. The two scored equal points over the weekend, according to the series’ round report, which left Mitchell 4.5 points clear of Ricci.
Nürburgring (late August). Christoph von Oeynhausen’s #888 BMW Z4 won both races overall. In Race 1, Beaubelique’s attack on Marcus von Oeynhausen’s BMW at Turn 1 ended with a damaged Ferrari spinning on leaking fluid. Race 2 delivered the Pro-Am title anyway, with one round to spare. Nick Padmore’s Audi led until Von Oeynhausen passed him on the last lap, after the two ran side by side from Turn 1 to Turn 7 (report).
Barcelona (3–4 October). Rain made Race 1 a half-points affair: it began behind the safety car and was stopped with about 20 minutes left, with points awarded from the order at the end of lap seven. Pascal Huteau won Am Gen II, Debard took Am Gen I, and Cole and Alvaro Parente scored their first Pro-Am win. Ricci’s father Mauro spun in a fight with Von Oeynhausen’s BMW, dropping the Ferrari to ninth in class and denting the title bid. Sunday was dry and produced Neumann’s first overall win, plus a last-lap Pro-Am pass by Von Oeynhausen for his third class win in three races (finale report).
Your first champions
| Class | Champion | Car | Team |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pro-Am | Jean-Luc Beaubelique | Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 | Storic and Race Cars |
| Am Gen I | Éric Debard | Ford GT GT3 | Debard Automobiles by Racetivity |
| Am Gen II | Heiko Neumann | Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 | Team Motopark |
What it proves, and what it doesn’t
It proves there’s an audience for old GT3 cars in a series with a grown-up schedule: a 44-car Spa grid, about 40,000 spectators at an opener shared with a bigger headline series, and Ferrari, Aston Martin, Audi, BMW and Mercedes all winning races. It also suggests GT3’s original promise, that many different models can be balanced to race close together, survives when the cars are a decade or more old.
What it doesn’t prove yet is depth. Am Gen II fills the grid; Gen I is thin, and its title came down to Debard or his Ford GT team-mate Philippe Giauque. The Am Gen II crown was also settled partly by an amended timetable that kept a rival’s cars off the track on Sunday, not purely by a result. Year two needs a calendar that doesn’t do that.
What to watch in 2027
The 2027 calendar keeps five rounds and reshuffles the map: Barcelona (2–4 April), Dijon-Prenois (7–9 May, a first for the series), the 24 Hours of Spa support bill (23–27 June), Paul Ricard (27–29 August, replacing the Nürburgring) and a Hungaroring finale (1–3 October). A Paul Ricard test is set for 15–17 March.
Which 2006–2013 GT3 car do you most want on the grid at Dijon next year? And does a title partly settled by a timetable change bother you, or is that just club racing? Tell us in the comments.
Race results, standings and calendar details come from the GT3 Revival Series’ official news releases linked above. Image credits appear in each caption.
Lead image: Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 on the Nürburgring Nordschleife, 2010. Photo: Stefan Fliß / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.
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