The decision of the FIA (who run most of world motorsport) and the ACO (who organise Le Mans and its associated series) to finally work together already appears to be bearing fruit for global sports car racing, as manufacturers line up to join the new FIA GT World Championship.
It's been a confusing couple of decades in sports car racing, with numerous series under numerous names run by numerous organisations. Now, however, there will be just two major series - the FIA World Endurance championship (which will stick to longer races - and involve Le Mans Prototypes) and the FIA GT World Championship (which will continue with shorter 'sprint' races).
Teams representing Aston Martin, Audi, BMW, Ferrari, Ford, Lamborghini and Nissan will all be back in 2012, (they currently race in the GT1 series), while the FIA and the Stephane Ratel Organisation (which runs the GT1 series)are also confident of bringing Mercedes, Alpina and Chevrolet into the new championship. It'd be a brave man who bets against a Porsche appearing here at some point too...
The new series will consolidate the current GT1, GT3 and GT4 cars, and work is well underway on how to equalise the performance of cars which currently compete in different classes.
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