GT World Challenge Europe

I'm Maurice Merrick.

My guest this week, the delightful Horatio Fitzsimon, a talented young racing driver who cut his teeth in historics and is now competing in the GT World Challenge Endurance Series in Europe with Team RJN piloting a McLaren 720S.

Horatio will race in the final round of the season at Portimao, Portugal in October, which you can watch on the GT World YouTube channel.

And this weekend, he returns to Goodwood Revival in the 1960 Lotus LX GT, a one-off racing version of the Lotus Elite.

We recorded this episode in person at the Quail Lodge and Golf Club during Monterey Car Week.

It's what my ambition always was.

Did I ever think I'd get into the series that I'm in now? I must admit there are a few times when I've had to pinch myself.

The series that I'm doing is GT World Challenge.

I don't know what that could be.

Obviously we know Valentino Rossi made the switch to GT World Challenge after his MotoGP career.

So could be something like that.

I mean, I, I don't know.

Physically tough, mentally quite extraordinary.

right in cup two it's still the number 900 entry that's leading the way but the gap is coming down a little bit which may be the i think so the final pit so i just got to double check how many pit stops they have conducted but those will be coming up soon because they often pit a little bit later for their final round of run through the pits no they've served their final pit stops now so just outside the top 10 car number 913th place with the Chilean Benja Ites started his racing career in Ferraris came across the race in the GT World Challenge but really seems to have settled on doing the long distance races here on the Nordschweife 902 is also doing rather nicely sponsored by Queen Molly long-standing sponsor in German racing And that has not too far.

It's about 20 seconds.

So the battle in class is four and a half seconds now, but maybe slightly more than that.

He won the Pro Class Championship of the 2024 Porsche Carrera Cup North America and is the 2025 Porsche Cup winner.

At the same time, he also competes in the endurance class of the GT World Challenge Europe, so this guy can definitely be considered a top-tier driver.

When he drove up to the accident site and saw that ball of fire, he immediately brought his car to a stop.

You have to understand, in motorsports, for a driver who is in the middle of a race to voluntarily stop their car on the track without a red flag or any instructions, it means they are given up on the race.

He was saying, we need to go back to where we have... two classes again you know in the old days you know it it wasn't as simple as this but you could say you know gte which gt2 became was sort of the professional class and gt3 was the amateur class obviously it was not as simple as that uh But he's saying, do we need to go back to that situation? Because at the moment, GT3 covers both bases.

We have fully pro GT3 racing at the highest level of the, say, the GT World Challenge Europe.

where all pro lineups are allowed, and then in the DTM, where, you know, single drivers, and in the pro class, GTD Pro in IMSA.

But then, you know, there are amateurs racing in IMSA, in regular GTD, and then, you know, in all the GT World Challenge series in Europe, in...

in Asia, in America, Australia.

So we're saying, do we need two categories again? He was saying, you know, is that what the manufacturers are saying by building these cars? I don't know.

Okay.

Sunday afternoon, the GT World Challenge Europe runs the three hours of the Nürburgring, round 7 of the season, round 4 of the Endurance Cup, and about 60 cars with 10 manufacturers.

It is, by some distance, the healthiest GT grid on the planet.

And on the same weekend, on the same circuit, there's a support race for GT3 cars built between 2006 and 2013, a historic series for GT3.

So here's a quick little orientation, because if you're American, this series probably sits in your peripheral vision at best.

Like, it just isn't top of mind for all of us.

GT World Challenge Europe is run by SRO, and it splits into two championships.

So a Sprint Cup and an Endurance Cup.