Quote:
Originally Posted by Jonerz
When Panoz had a friendly sanctioning body stateside and the ear of the ACO who were trying to benefit from what was then the white-hot flame of GT1 racing, he saw the opportunity for an American Le Mans Series; and before the 10 Hours at Petit had ended (and likely well before they'd started) plans were in the offing to launch a championship whose rules were more sensible and allowed teams to easily race in North America and Europe, crucially in Don's mind, at Le Mans.
Chris
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By '98 GT1 was effectively dead, it was a case of waiting for the remaining programs to be wound up with many having a last run at Le Mans '99.
With Audi and BMW going the LMP route there was an attempt to relaunch FIA GT1 as a prototype series but there wasn't enough support. The result was Europe being left with FIA GT2 and the FIA SCC for old style 333SP's and Riley's with most of the top Le Mans runners going to the ALMS.