Porsche Carrera Cup Australia (known commercially as the Porsche Paynter Dixon Carrera Cup Australia) is an Australian motor racing series open to
Porsche 911 GT3 Cup
The Porsche 911 GT3 is a high-performance homologation model of the Porsche 911 sports car. It is a line of high-performance models, which began with the 1973 911 Carrera RS.
The GT3 has had a successful racing career in the one-make national ...
cars. First held in 2003, it is administered by Porsche Cars Australia Pty Ltd and is sanctioned by
Motorsport Australia
Motorsport Australia, formerly the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS), is the nationally recognised governing and sanctioning body for four-wheeled motorsport in Australia. It is affiliated with the Federation Internationale de l'Au ...
(Formerly Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS)) as a national championship through to 2015 and as a National Series from 2016-2021. Starting in 2022 the category returned back as a national championship. During its history, Carrera Cup has been a leading support category for the
Supercars Championship
The Supercars Championship is a touring car racing category in Australia, running as an International Series under Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) regulations, governing the sport.
Supercars events take place in all Australian ...
.
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
driver
Craig Baird
Craig George Baird (born 22 July 1970) is a New Zealand former racing driver who now is the driving standards observer for the Australian Supercars Championship.
Honours
In the 2010 New Year Honours, Baird was appointed a Member of the New ...
has been the most successful driver, winning the series five times.
History
The regulations for the series are based on those used for
Porsche Carrera Cup
Porsche Carrera Cup (sometimes abbreviated PCC) is a number of one-make racing by Porsche premier series competed with, initially Porsche 911 Carrera Cup, then later Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars. The cars are specifically built by Porsche for one-m ...
racing series in Europe and the rest of the world, with modifications to the cars strictly controlled to ensure parity between competing vehicles. From 2003 to 2005 the specified model was the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (
Type 996) with the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (
Type 997) used from 2006 and various iterations of the car beyond that, usually in a three-year cycle until the end of 2013. Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (
Type 991) was first introduced and used in 2014 until the
Porsche 911 GT3 Cup Type 991.II iteration arrived in 2018. Starting in the 2022 season the
Porsche 911 GT3 Cup Type 992 is set to be introduced.
Jim Richards was the inaugural champion, fresh from having taken Porsche 996s to three consecutive
Australian Nations Cup Championship
The Australian Nations Cup Championship was a motor racing title sanctioned by the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) from 2000 to 2004.
History
In the absence of the Australian GT Championship (which had not been run since 1985), Nat ...
s. The series quickly proved its worthy as a ladder category for emerging young drivers with
Alex Davison
Alexander Davison (born 3 November 1979) is an Australian racing driver. He won the 2004 Australian Carrera Cup Championship. As part of the Davison motorsport family, he is the older brother of Will Davison, grandson of Lex Davison and cousin ...
and
Fabian Coulthard
Fabian "Fabs" Coulthard (born 28 July 1982) is a British-born New Zealand professional race car driver, currently competing in the Repco Supercars Championship, driving as an endurance co-driver for Chaz Mostert with Walkinshaw Andretti United ...
winning championships while
Marcus Marshall
Marcus Marshall (born 25 November 1978) is a former Champ Car driver from Australia.
Biography
He began racing in British Formula Three, where he was generally a running outside the top ten, but took a hard-fought win in a wet race. He contes ...
,
Jonathon Webb
Jonathon Webb (born 10 December 1983) is an Australian former professional racing driver and team owner of Team Sydney, who once co-drove alongside Fabian Coulthard in the No. 19 Holden ZB Commodore for the Pirtek Enduro Cup.
In 2016, Webb and ...
and
David Reynolds were also early graduates. The series was also responsible for the creation of a number of professional motor racing teams, including
Paul Cruikshank Racing
Paul Cruickshank Racing was an Australian motor racing team that competed in several Sports Car and Touring Car categories.
History
While new to the championship in 2006, Cruickshank has run several cars in the Development V8 Supercar series ...
and VIP Petfoods Racing while also giving teams like
Sonic Motor Racing Services
Sonic Motor Racing Services is an Australian racing team that is competes in the Porsche Carrera Cup Australia Championship, Porsche Sprint Challenge, the Australian Formula Ford Championship, and the Victorian Formula Ford Championship. The t ...
,
Tekno Autosports
Tekno Autosports was an Australian motor racing team, established in the 1990s initially for the motor racing activities of Stephen Webb, and later his son Jonathon Webb. The team competes in the Supercars Championship using two Holden ZB Commo ...
and
International Motorsport
International Motorsport is a New Zealand motor racing team based in Grey Lynn, Auckland that competes in the V8SuperTourer series and the South Island Endurance Championship.
The team currently run one car in the V8 SuperTourer Series, the #96 ...
opportunities to expand.
Demise
In the lead up to the 2009 season the series organisers were forced to cancel the series, citing a lack of competitors. Those competitors left with 997 GT3 Cup Cars found themselves without a series to race in as the cars were neither able to compete in the
Australian GT Championship
The Australian GT Championship is a Confederation of Australian Motor Sport, CAMS-sanctioned national title for drivers of GT cars, held annually from 1960 to 1963, from 1982 to 1985 and from 2005. Each championship up to and including the 1963 ...
, to which they were eligible but were prevented by
CAMS with the intention of preventing the collapse that ultimately occurred or the
Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Australia
The Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Australia is a sports car racing series open to drivers of Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars. The series was first held in 2008 to fill the void between club racing and the Australian Carrera Cup Championship and Australian ...
as models newer than 996s were not eligible for points. As the situation evolved permission was gained for the Porsches to enter the GT series in strictly limited numbers and likewise 997s were allowed to compete in the GT3 Challenge but to compete to their own pointscore rather than take points away from the 996 and 993s that made up the bulk of the series competitors.
Revival
Porsche Cars Australia announced the series would return for the 2011 season featuring the 2011 specification version of the Type 997 GT3 Cup. Since the series revival
Craig Baird
Craig George Baird (born 22 July 1970) is a New Zealand former racing driver who now is the driving standards observer for the Australian Supercars Championship.
Honours
In the 2010 New Year Honours, Baird was appointed a Member of the New ...
, already a two-time champion, dominated again, winning a further three championships. The following seven seasons saw seven new champions, with Baird remaining the only multiple champion as of 2021. Since 2013, an annual two-driver pro-am event has been included in the series, with several guest appearances from Supercars drivers.
In 2015 the
Confederation of Australian Motor Sport
Motorsport Australia, formerly the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS), is the nationally recognised governing and sanctioning body for four-wheeled motorsport in Australia. It is affiliated with the Federation Internationale de l'Au ...
announced that Carrera Cup would be downgraded from national championship to national series status from 2016.
In 2016 and 2018, a joint round between the series and
Porsche Carrera Cup Asia
Porsche Carrera Cup (sometimes abbreviated PCC) is a number of one-make racing by Porsche premier series competed with, initially Porsche 911 Carrera Cup, then later Porsche 911 GT3 Cup cars. The cars are specifically built by Porsche for one-m ...
was held at
Sydney Motorsport Park
Sydney Motorsport Park (known until May 2012 as Eastern Creek International Raceway) is a motorsport circuit located on Brabham Drive, Eastern Creek (40-kilometres west of the Sydney CBD), New South Wales, Australia, adjacent to the Western Sy ...
. The event featured individual races for each series before two combined races, one for both the Pro and Challenge classes. Both combined races were won by Australian entrants. In 2017, the Australian series travelled to Asia to contest a similar joint round at
Sepang International Circuit
The Sepang International Circuit ( ms, Litar Antarabangsa Sepang) is a motorsport race track in Sepang, Selangor, Malaysia. It is located approximately south of Kuala Lumpur, and close to Kuala Lumpur International Airport. It hosted the For ...
in
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
.
The series also introduced an Endurance Cup in 2017, with the first round alongside the Supercars Sandown 500.
In the 2020 season of Porsche Carrera Cup Australia. It would be cancelled after Race 1 of Round 2 during the
2020 Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix weekend in
Albert Park Melbourne due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
. There here by no champion would be crowned for the season.
In the 2022 season.
Motorsport Australia
Motorsport Australia, formerly the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS), is the nationally recognised governing and sanctioning body for four-wheeled motorsport in Australia. It is affiliated with the Federation Internationale de l'Au ...
(Formerly Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS)) has announced that Porsche Carrera Cup Australia would regain its status as a national championship.
Champions
Multiple champions
References
External links
Porsche Paynter Dixon Carrera Cup Australia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Porsche Carrera Cup Australia
2003 establishments in Australia
Sports leagues established in 2003