Pro-Am McLaren Trophy championship announced
McLaren’s new Trophy championship to use Artura GT4-based racer with more power and aero
McLaren has announced a new one-make Pro-Am McLaren Trophy championship kicking off in 2023, utilising a unique racer based on the new Artura GT4 that’s free of any Balance of Performance regulations. The new series will be aimed at facilitating amateur and aspiring GT racers, and will support five rounds of the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe.
The new Artura Trophy race car draws many of its elements from the GT4 car, ditching the road car’s hybrid drive elements to be a pure combustion-engined racer. As such, the twin-turbocharged 3-litre V6 engine shares its hot-vee layout and 120-degree v-angle, but being freed of its BoP limitations will produce its full 576bhp – incidentally more than regulations allow for GT3 racers, let alone GT4.
The Trophy racer also debuts a more aggressive aero package, with a larger and higher downforce wing, larger splitter and new dive planes ahead of the front wheels. This, combined with no weight penalties brought on by those BoP regulations, means the Trophy will be faster than an equivalent GT4 around most racetracks, while still being approachable to drive for non-professional racing drivers.
For owners wanting to eventually reach an official GT4-class race, the Artura Trophy can then easily be converted to an GT4-specification by adjusting the engine management and aero package.
Previous 570S Trophy cars will also be eligible for entry in the new one-make season, with equal technical support to the new Artura Trophy cars. Each team will be run independently from McLaren, but to smooth out the logistics for drivers, McLaren is offering a concierge service that’ll handle the operational side of things such as hotels and transfers.
Race weekends will run two 60 minute practice sessions on the opening day, ahead of a 15 minute qualifying and 50 minute race on both Saturday and Sunday. The championship will commence on June 2 at Paul Ricard in France, before four subsequent European rounds including the Spa-Francorchamps 24hr on July 27.
