Racing with Professionals/MRS GT Racing

PRESS RELEASE 04 February 2011 Success Ballast Out, Compensation Times in for FIA GT3

Success Ballast, which has been a feature of the FIA GT3 European Championship since 2009, has been replaced with Compensation Times for the 2011 season. Instead of the top three cars and drivers being awarded +20kg, +15kg and +10kg in each race, they will receive a time of +15 seconds for 1st place, +10 seconds for second place and +5 seconds for 3rd, which will be added to the minimum pit stop duration set for the following race in the Championship. The move away from success ballast was made after it was felt that success ballast, coupled with ballast weight used to balance the performance of the various cars in the championship, was adversely affecting the performance and competitiveness of some cars. This led to the decision to remove success ballast from the equation, but keeping ballast weights as part of the Balance of Performance tests for each homologated model. The Compensation Time will be added to the pitstop time of the top three cars and drivers at the next race. The top three in the first race of the weekend will have the Compensation Times applied for the second race of the same weekend and not at the next event as was the case with success ballast, the top three of the second race weekend will have the Compensation Times added to the pitstop time of the first race at the next event. Success ballast was introduced in 2009 to stop one team / driver pairing dominating the championship and, while this has proved to be successful, the application of Compensation Times during the pitstops will be equally effective while not being reliant on adding ballast to a car. SRO CEO Stephane Ratel said: “This move away from Success Ballast in GT3 should help the teams to be more consistent throughout the season while keeping a check on the top three cars and drivers at each event so we don’t have one dominant team/driver combination. This change will help keep the FIA GT3 European Championship in its position as the leading GT series in Europe.” About the FIA GT3 European Championship The 2011 FIA GT3 European Championship will take place over six double header events across Europe starting in Portugal on the 7/8 May at the Autodromo do Algarve. The first four events will be with the FIA GT1 World Championship before finishing the season as the headline series with two events at the Smolenskring in Russia and finishing at Zandvoort in The Netherlands in October. As well as competing against some of the best up and coming sportscar drivers in the world, the overall champions will join a very elite group of European title holders. 2011 FIA GT3 European Championship 7/8 May Portugal Algarve 4/5 June Great Britain Silverstone 2/3 July Spain Navarra 16/17 July France Paul Ricard 20/21 August Russia Smolensk Ring 15/16 October Netherlands Zandvoort Info :Jeff Carter/Media Delegate.