SRO reveals plan to start BES GT season with PWC

A non-championship Blancpain Endurance Series race in the United States is under evaluation for the start of next season. The race would be part of the link-up announced in March between the Stephane Ratel Organization, which runs the BES and the sister Blancpain Sprint Series, and the Pirelli World Challenge.

Under the plan, the PWC could close its 2016 season at a Blancpain event in Europe, most likely a BSS race in Italy next autumn, while cars from an SRO championship would join the bill for the PWC opener, run this year at Circuit of The Americas in March.

Stephane Ratel had previously refused to confirm that this would be a round of the Blancpain Sprint Series and has now revealed that his focus is staging an endurance race in the U.S.

"Maybe we could have some kind of pilot event with an endurance race involving our teams and theirs," he told AUTOSPORT. "Many of the teams running in PWC have multiple cars, so they could do their race and then do an endurance race against our teams.

"It is still a work in progress and the possibility remains that we will start the BSS in the U.S. next year."

The replacement of the last round of this year's BSS in Baku with an event at Zandvoort will not affect plans to bring the top three PWC contenders to Europe to take part in the finale as planned, Ratel said.

SRO opted against announcing its 2016 calendars over the course of the Spa 24 Hours event last weekend as it has done in the past, primarily because Ratel has been focused on putting together the entry for the inaugural FIA GT World Cup in November. He said there would be no changes to the BES schedule, which he described as "being set in stone."

SRO will unveil its calendars at the BES finale at the Nurburgring in September.

Originally on Autosport.com