BMW clinched the inaugural GT4 Manufacturer Ranking title at Jeddah’s season finale last weekend following a global campaign comprising 95 races staged across 50 events and eight series.
Its nearest rival, Porsche, faced an uphill battle to overhaul its 824-point deficit and ultimately finished 975 points adrift thanks to BMW’s impressive showing in both GT4 European Series Powered by RAFA Racing Club contests.
Aston Martin further cemented its place in third while Audi Sport top scored at the finale with a total of 950 points.
In truth, a combination of the GT4 Manufacturer Ranking points system and Jeddah’s entry list left Porsche heavily reliant on BMW’s capitulation. Instead, the Bavarian marque’s representatives did more than enough to not only clinch the global title but also extend the manufacturer’s final winning margin.
The pair traded blows in Race 1 where AVR-AVVATAR and Razoon – More Than Racing earned Porsche a Pro-Am one-two, while BMW collected first place Am points thanks to CHAZEL Technologie Course. But those and other results only generated a 71-point swing in Stuttgart’s favour – not nearly enough to give it a chance on Saturday.
Instead, BMW went on to accumulate 222 more points thanks, in part, to further class podiums for L’Espace Bienvenue (Silver) and CHAZEL Technologie Course (Am). AVR-AVVATAR and W&S Motorsport played their part for Porsche by finishing two-three in Pro-Am, but it was only a consolation in terms of the global standings.
Aston Martin headed into the weekend safe in third place overall and further cemented its podium by scoring the second highest number of points across both races. It enjoyed strong results in all classes with the undoubted highlight GPA Racing’s Am victory on Saturday.
NM Racing Team was also victorious on the final day for Mercedes-AMG, which headed to Jeddah uncatchable in fourth overall.
The star of the show was undoubtedly Audi Sport’s Team Speedcar, which won twice overall and in Silver. However, four victories in as many GT4 European Series races was not enough to help its manufacturer finish any higher than seventh and behind both McLaren and Toyota.
Ford completed 2024’s list of GT4 Manufacturer Ranking entrants. Its new Mustang enjoyed a particularly successful season in Australia but was also a frontrunner in British GT and across Europe.
2025’s contributing championships and participating constructors will be confirmed at the start of next year.
HOW ARE GLOBAL POINTS SCORED?
SRO Motorsports Group must account for varying degrees of manufacturer participation across each continent when calculating the GT4 Manufacturer Ranking.
As such, points are awarded based on the position of each manufacturer’s leading car per category (Overall, Pro-Am, Am etc) in every race.
Points for Sprint races of up to 60 minutes are based on the standard allocation (25 – 18 – 15 – 12 – 10 – 8 – 6 – 4 – 2 – 1). This allocation doubles for races lasting two and three hours.
The points scored per brand are then multiplied by the number of cars competing in that category. Therefore, a win in a category with five cars competing is worth less than one where 20 cars are entered.
No cars are removed from the classification – if the top six cars are from a single brand, the next brand will score points for seventh. These points are added across the categories and races to give the manufacturers’ global score.