GBA GT Cup to continue to hold qualification races for Macau this year

The growing number of interested racers taking part in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) GT Cup for the GT4 specification vehicles will continue to push to have this series this year, once again, through a series of qualifying races for the local GP that will take place in November.

Although the qualifying races are not new in this category, as they happened last year, it indicates a continued interest in this category in addition to the celebratory 70th-anniversary edition.

Although there is not yet an entry list for the races that will take place over two weekends in May and July this year, more racers will likely join the field. Among these in particular are local and Hong Kong racers, now that the former RoadSports Challenge category has been merged into one single category in the Macau Touring Car Series.

It is clear that the local Automobile Association wishes to revive and develop the category after finally stabilizing the regulations under the GT4 category.

As the Times previously reported, the GBA GT Cup has passed several rapid and almost yearly transformations in the past. This created instability which discouraged racers and teams from investing in the series.

GT4 cars will race on May 10-12 and July 5-7 in a total of four races (15 laps each) to be held at the Zhuzhou International Circuit in the Hunan Province. It will be the first time local/regional races use this circuit.

Last year, the category listed only 18 entries at the start of the qualifying races, but three of them ended up not taking part in any of the racing events. This reduced the category to just 15, being the minimum number needed to run the series according to the sports regulations. Later, two new entries joined the last round before the Macau GP.

Initially launched in 2019 as a formal GT4 category race with a field of 27 cars, the category began to lose entrants, reducing to 21 in 2020 and 20 in 2021.

Last year, the category managed to gather 28 cars by putting together two similar categories, adding some 10 GTC category cars to the 18 GT4 listed.

Racing on the first weekend of the celebratory edition of the local GP, the GBA GT Cup (GT4) has attracted an initial 25 racers, from which only 19 have reached the final race.

Although the competition holds the name of GBA GT Cup, racers are not restricted to the cities and regions that comprise the GBA, with others also able to participate. This has happened in the past with several racers from Taiwan, other regions of China, and even the UK and New Zealand.