2016.05.11

International steering committee between SUPER GT and DTM was held in Japan.

On May 11, GTA Co.,Ltd, the governing body of SUPER GT Series, and ITR GmbH, the promoter of German Touring Car Championship (DTM), held fifth round of their steering committee at a hotel in Tokyo. GTA Chairman Masaaki Bandoh, ITR Chairman Hans Werner Aufrecht, Japan Automobile Federation (JAF), and the six participating manufacturers of both series exchanged opinions on various agenda during the meeting. In the meeting, GTA Chairman Bandoh and ITR Chairman Aufrecht reached an agreement to issue a unified technical regulation, Class One regulation, by September, 2017 and held a signing ceremony during the post meeting press conference to ink in the agreement document.

 

 

In the press conference held after the meeting, GTA Chairman Bandoh said, "In this meeting, GTA, ITR, and participating automakers actively exchanged opinions, and we agreed and signed the agreements to deploy the Class One regulation to both series from 2019 season and to crate and issue the Class One regulation by September, 2017. We also confirmed to integrate the technical regulations of both series as much as possible while respecting the difference of the race formats in the course of deploying the Class One regulation and that one of the objectives of commonly using the Class One regulation is to realize the World Final, an opportunity for the automakers/teams of Japan and Germany to run together. Also, in addition to the common parts counting over sixty items currently, we will consider standardizing uprights as well as aerodynamics parts that are only standardized in terms of drawings to increase the number of common parts." After debriefing the details of meeting, Bandoh concluded by saying, "I am confident that by having this meeting ending in success the collaboration between SUPER GT and DTM will accelerate as we proceed."

 

 

ITR Chairman Aufrecht also addressed the floor, "I feel the same way as Chairman Bandoh. Continue to reduce the cost required in motorsports and proactively execute marketing activities and expand it internationally. I am assured that we got closer to that. And, by signing the agreement, I believe we have actually made a progress towards that. This made me confident that we can actually create a race that allures fans." Aufrecht expressed his confidence in completing a unified technical regulation as well as realizing successful collaboration between both series.

 

 

Chain of questions were raised by the media in Q&A session, and, to the question "What kind of effect will be seen by this unified regulations?", all representatives of automakers expressed their high expectations and recognitions on the reduction of racing cost and the globalization the unified regulations will bring. There were also answers saying that with six automakers competing under a unified regulations they can showcase races of a higher level and that the regulations would make it easier for other manufacturers to participate in the series.

 

 

In addition to the representatives of GT and ITR, representatives from JAF, three automakers participating in the GT500 class of SUPER GT (Toyota/Lexus, Honda, and Nissan/Nissan Motorsports International), and three automakers participating in DTM (Audi, BMW, and Mercedes Benz) also participated in the steering committee held this time and proactively exchanged their opinions.

 

 

 

Steering committee was established in July, 2013 as an operational committee consist of representatives of promoters, automobile federations of respective countries, and the participating automakers with an objective of sustainable development of racing series in respective countries of GTA (Japan), ITR (Germany), and IMSA (USA). There had been four steering committee meetings where a series of discussions for unifying the technical regulations as well as holding a joint events were carried out. *Representative of IMSA was unable to attend the meeting this time.

 

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