BPR

Well I'm not sure is it suitable for nostalgia as it happened some 15 years ago, but I'll try because I have a few questions.

1) Who exactly organized it and who ran it?
2) How did Bernie feel about it?
3) What happened after 1996 why they were no more?
4) In 1997 they went under FiA or merged with something?
5) Were they ever connected to ACO?
6) How old were those Lotuses and Ferraris as the models were ancient really?
7) There was a shampoo tycoon Lindsay Owen Jones racing, how well did he actually went?
8) How different were the rules to the Le Mans rules if there was any difference other than length?


thank you bye

Well I'm not sure is it suitable for nostalgia as it happened some 15 years ago, but I'll try because I have a few questions.

1) Who exactly organized it and who ran it?
2) How did Bernie feel about it?
3) What happened after 1996 why they were no more?
4) In 1997 they went under FiA or merged with something?
5) Were they ever connected to ACO?
6) How old were those Lotuses and Ferraris as the models were ancient really?
7) There was a shampoo tycoon Lindsay Owen Jones racing, how well did he actually went?
8) How different were the rules to the Le Mans rules if there was any difference other than length?


thank you bye

Organised by Stephane Ratel. Jurgen Barth and Patrick Peter- it was taken over by the FIA after 1996 to become the FIA GT Championship, although the 3 principals would go on to be involved in other GT series.

The Lotuses- the V8 Esprits raced in 1996 were new cars, AFAIK 3 chassis were built over the winter of 1995/6, specifically to the current GT1 regulations of the time.

Lindsay Owen-Jones was usually fairly competitive- the GTC/Gulf McLaren squad were one of the top teams, and he was sharing the car with the a professional driver with plenty of sportscar experience in Pierre-Henri Raphanel- (bear in mind that most of the top teams had at least one amateur 'gentleman driver' paired with a pro) though I don't think there were any race wins- GTC's other car (Ray Bellm/James Weaver usually) was more successful

Rules would have been pretty much equivalent to those used in the GT classes at Le Mans at the time- a lot of the BPR regulars also appeared at Le Mans

Look here for history
http://en.wikipedia....lobal_GT_Series
http://wspr-racing.c...f_bpr_home.html

Edited by Kevan, 23 June 2009 - 11:23.

For my first contribution to this forum in quite a while, just let me ask for something else about the 1994-1996 BPR series:

The results given in http://wspr-racing.c...f_bpr_home.html show so many drivers with no first names given!
Can anyone out there please give me the full names of drivers like Vermesse / F, Bernard / F, de Doncker / B, Birbeau / F, Faraut / F, Itczicksohn (NAT?), Poulain / F, Balmer (NAT?), Matli (NAT?), Mimram (NAT?), Renavand (NAT?), Hanelle & Hanelle (NAT?), Hunkeler / CH, Peacock (NAT?), just to name those among the top twenty and not to mention the list of DNFs.

What I also cannot imagine is that no one out there seems to have the full results of all of the BPR races (just look at the "Other starters"-listings ...)?

And just to top this off: the 1998 short-lived GTR series seems to be an even whiter spot on the pages of almost any motorsports history or statistics site ...

Any information about these series gladly appreciated ...

Regards,

Helmut

Edited by alpine, 13 July 2009 - 19:32.

Interesting to see mention of this series as I'm currently writing a history on one of the cars that competed in 1997 and 1998.

The McLaren F1 was the sort of car that this series should have been all about but Porsche built a "911" GT1 in 1996 that was basically a 956/962 chassis lightly disguised as a road car. Mercedes then decided that if Porsche could get away with that then they'd go all out and built a two-seater racing car with a roof and called it a GT. They didn't even bother to get it homologated before it raced - the FIA had to change the rules quickly for 1997 so it could be allowed in.

And then there was the Panoz. Fabulous competition in 1996 and 1997 - a real pearl of a series!

But then what happened?

Can anyone out there please give me the full names of drivers like Vermesse / F, Bernard / F, de Doncker / B, Birbeau / F, Faraut / F, Itczicksohn (NAT?), Poulain / F, Balmer (NAT?), Matli (NAT?), Mimram (NAT?), Renavand (NAT?), Hanelle & Hanelle (NAT?), Hunkeler / CH, Peacock (NAT?), just to name those among the top twenty and not to mention the list of DNFs.

Just a bit of info:

From the entry list for the '95 Paul Ricard race - as published by Auto-Hebdo:
Renavand = Michel Renavand (FRA)
Birbeau = François Birbeau (FRA)
Faraut = Michel Faraut (FRA)


From other races:
Peacock = R. Peacock (USA)
Vermesse = P. Vermesse (FRA)


A better souce for information than wsrp-racing.com may be www.racingsportscars.com

I think you will find most info here: http://www.racingspo...onship/BPR.html

For example if you the first race (Paul Ricard 4 hours), and then clcik 'Grid', you'll find complete names for most of the drivers...
(As opposed to 'entered cars' which only gices last names)

Edited by Gert, 19 September 2009 - 14:17.

The results given in http://wspr-racing.c...f_bpr_home.html show so many drivers with no first names given!
Can anyone out there please give me the full names of drivers like Vermesse / F, Bernard / F, de Doncker / B, Birbeau / F, Faraut / F, Itczicksohn (NAT?), Poulain / F, Balmer (NAT?), Matli (NAT?), Mimram (NAT?), Renavand (NAT?), Hanelle & Hanelle (NAT?), Hunkeler / CH, Peacock (NAT?), just to name those among the top twenty and not to mention the list of DNFs.

Time And Two Seats has the full SP:

Pascal Vermesse
Eric de Doncker
Gilbert Itczicksohn (albeit nationless, but practically every other Venturi driver was French)
Herve Poulain (he was quite well known)
Jean-Pierre Balmer (F)
Billi Matti [sic] (I)
Jean-Claude Mimram (F) (NB: qualified but did not drive)
Matthieu and Thomas Hamelle (F)
Franz Hunkeler
Robert Peacock (USA)


And...Eric Bernard.