In a joint announcement at legendary Norisring circuit in Germany, the new “CLASS 1” regulations for DTM and the Japanese SUPER GT series were unveiled this morning to the media and fans simultaneously.
Present at the launch of the new technical regulations, which take effect next year, was Masaaki Bandoh, Chairman of the SUPER GT umbrella organisation GTA and Gerhard Berger, Chairman of the DTM umbrella organisation ITR.
“A milestone for international motor racing,” Berger described the result of the collaboration of ITR and GTA. “These regulations enable manufacturers and teams to participate in spectacular motor racing at reasonable costs on two continents – and thereby to reach many people.”
The GTA’s Bandoh-san was equally enthusiastic and complimentary.
“I would like to thank Mr. Berger, DTM and SUPER GT manufacturers, and all concerned for your dedication to this project,” the Japanese GTA boss said. “As you can see from the great success of our show runs done in both Germany and Japan last year, our collaboration has been further deepened.”
The new, joint technical regulations are based on three pillars to guarantee both exiting racing and driver safety too. Currently, the cars in both series already resemble each other in many areas but from 2019, the DTM machines will fully meet the new “CLASS 1” regulations. One year later (2020), the Japanese SUPER GT cars also will adopt a version of the new regulations that will be slightly modified for the endurance races that are a part of the series’ calendar. The whole idea is that the new regulations will attract new manufacturers to the series.
“I want to thank Bandoh-san and all the peers that jointly worked on the new ‘CLASS 1’ regulations very much,” Berger continued. “I’m really happy about the fact that DTM and SUPER GT made a crucial step on the way to our goal: to jointly hold races. By the creation of these regulations we kept on pursuing our previous course consequently. Furthermore, we set the course for the future of DTM that will fully adopt the new regulations from 2019, thus remaining an attractive platform for the car manufacturers.”
