City Challenge was an event organisation that holds motorsports, arts and entertainment events in major city centres. It had its headquarters in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

History

City Challenge CEO Hartmut Beyer started to plan a race circuit downtown

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...

, Romania, in 2004. After fulfilling the role as organiser and promoter for the

FIA GT Championship The FIA GT Championship was a sports car racing series organized by the Stéphane Ratel Organisation (SRO) at the behest of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The championship was mostly concentrated in Europe, but throughout ...

rounds in Bucharest 2007, 2008 (under the name of

Bucharest Ring The Bucharest Ring ( ro, Bucharestring) was a street circuit in the Romanian capital city of Bucharest and was initiated by City Challenge GmbH. Designed by famed track designer Hermann Tilke, the circuit was in the city centre, and has the Palac ...

) and Budapest, Hungary, in 2009, Mr. Beyer and his team performed negotiations with multiple cities around the world in order to establish its own GT championship that will take place from 2013 onwards.

Baku City Challenge

The inaugural Baku City Challenge event was being held in

Baku Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

, during 26–28 October 2012. The event attracted 42,000 spectators over the weekend, about 150 national and international journalists were reporting about the event and 100 crew members of the TV production provided the footage either live or as highlight in over 120 countries, reaching a total of 650 million households. On day time, the Historic Grand Prix and the Gymkhana Drift Series acted as support races of the Baku event. The evening show programme included the “CoGo show”, featuring international artists, and on-stage performances by, among others, DJ Pancho and

Rafet el Roman Rafet Yaşdut (born 25 August 1968), better known by his stage name Rafet El Roman, is a Turkish pop singer of Romani heritage. He holds German citizenship. Biography When El Roman's parents moved to Germany in 1970, he lived with his grandmoth ...

. A total of 13 teams, 24 cars of the makes BMW, McLaren, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Chevrolet participated during the City Challenge event on the 2,144-metre-long racetrack that was homologated with FIA grade 3. Among the drivers were five times DTM champion Bernd Schneider, former Formula 1 driver and 2008 Le Mans class winner

Jos Verstappen Johannes Franciscus Verstappen (; born 4 March 1972) is a former (Formula One) racing driver. Verstappen was the German Formula Three champion and Masters of Formula Three winner in 1993. In Formula 1, Verstappen raced for seven different t ...

, 1997 F1 World Champion and Indy 500 winner

Jacques Villeneuve Jacques Joseph Charles Villeneuve ( born 9 April 1971) is a Canadian professional racing driver and amateur musician who won the 1997 Formula One World Championship with Williams. In addition to Formula One (F1) he has competed in various ot ...

and

Mathias Lauda Mathias Lauda (born 30 January 1981) is an Austrian racing driver currently racing for Aston Martin Racing as a factory driver in the FIA World Endurance Championship. He is the son of the late three-time Formula One world champion Niki Lauda a ...

, son of three-time F1 World Champion

Niki Lauda Andreas Nikolaus "Niki" Lauda (22 February 1949 – 20 May 2019) was an Austrian Formula One driver and aviation entrepreneur. He was a three-time Formula One World Drivers' Champion, winning in , and , and is the only driver in Formula ...

. The City Challenge GT main race was won by drivers Frédéric Makowiecki and Stef Dusseldorp, driving the McLaren MP4-12C GT3 for HEXIS Racing. Frank Kechele and Mathias Lauda driving the BMW Z4 GT3 for Vita4One Racing Team were ranked second and the podium was concluded by Yelmer Buurman and Nicolaus Mayr-Melnhof, also driving a BMW Z4 GT3 for Vita4One Racing Team.

Future

City Challenge would have the ambition to grow to a stable event calendar that would contain a minimum of five events in Europe, Middle East, America and Asia.

References

{{Reflist

External links

City Challenge
Event management companies of Germany