Dubai Autodrome Motorsport Club (DAMC) have released sporting and technical regulations for the forthcoming season motor racing championships which they will be running in 2012/2013 under the auspices of the ATCUAE.
Regulations for the UAE Touring Cars, UAE GT and UAE Sportbikes championships were published last week with no big surprises for competitors and teams, as the DAMC strive to maintain continuity and stability for competitors. Hence also the early release of the regulations to allow prospective competitors to prepare and plan for the season ahead.
DAMC manager Richard Birch said, “The goal was to maintain stability throughout the championships run by the DAMC, and the early release provides all concerned with time to prepare for the 2012/2013 season. We have also endeavored to keep changes and tweaks to the regulations to a minimum and again to sustain continuity and hopefully growth too.”
The UAE Touring Car Championship regulations are essentially unchanged, however with the advent of the ATCUAE Technical Centre cars will now be more stringently monitored to ensure that they are operating within the confines of the regulations within both Class 1 and Class 2 of the championship. Once again the UAE Clio Cup will run within the UAE Touring Car Championship, while also being eligible for Class 2 honors.
The UAE Sportbikes Championship will feature 600 Class and Rookie Cup, with an invitational (non-championship) class for 1000cc machines. Thus the 600 Class will again be the premier two wheel road racing championship, with the 1000 Class being given another year of running.”
Birch said, “The 600 Class last year proved to be a winning formula in terms of sizes of the grids. In keeping with the wishes of the majority of competitors, it was decided to retain the 600 Class as the premier two wheel road racing category with UAE national championship status.”
The regulations for the UAE GT Championship have been tweaked to accommodate the global trend towards GT3 and GT4 racing. With dwindling grids last year, it has also been decided to target international GT teams to the local series who would use it as a testing and development opportunity during the winter where in Europe testing and racing is virtually non-existent during that period. Several major international teams have expressed interest in participating.
Big news for competitors is that the DAMC has decided to freeze entry fees once again, despite inflation, which endeavors to contain costs for competitors.
During the course of the summer negotiations are underway for title sponsorships for each of the DAMC organized series, information on this will be made public once finalized.
