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In 1997, due to increasing interest from manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and Panoz, the FIA took over control of the expanding BPR Global GT Series, standardizing the race-length at 500 km instead of the usual four hours, liberalizing the technical regulations and leaving commercial exploitation in the hands of one of BPR's founders, Stéphane Ratel, who managed to get TV support from the pan-European TV station Eurosport. The new manufacturers built "homologation specials", racing-bred cars that took full advantage of the new rules, to build quasi-prototypes with very limited production runs of 25 cars. Chrysler, Lister and Marcos, not wanting to accompany the cost escalation, moved down to the GT2 class.

This proved to be the wisest move, as Mercedes completely dominated the new category and the other manufacturers pulled out after the end of the 1998 season. This left Chrysler's Viper to become the dominating car in the series, with the aging Porsche 993 GT2 and the Lister Storm providing a certain degree of competition.

However, there was no lower inexpensive category for amateur drivers, and this led to the creation of the N-GT class in 2000. While the manufacturer field in the main class blossomed, the new category became swamped with Porsches and Ferraris, but lower running costs meant both classes enjoyed a balanced number of entries. In order to boost the championship's status, the SRO added the 24 Hours of Spa, previously a touring car race, to the calendar, where it became the series' most important race. The FIA also banned official manufacturer involvement, although certain teams had preferential treatment, with Porsche establishing a "round robin" system.

After the end of the 2004 season, the FIA renamed the classes GT1 and GT2, and somewhat liberalized the GT1 regulations, allowing "supercars". While this was made to accommodate the Saleen S7, the biggest beneficiary was the purpose-built Maserati MC12, which lead the FIA to impose aerodynamic limitations on the Italian car. However, thanks to a weight penalty system, the fight for the championship is protected from more domineering cars. The level of competition remains tight, with gentlemen drivers managing to fight for the wins with professional drivers, some of them with Formula 1 experience.

The 2009 and final FIA GT Championship will begin on 3rd May at Silverstone, GB

Final? That's new to me

Yeah but the calendar's completely changing. It's going to be a world series instead of an international one

Hmm, they have already to China, Dubai, Bahrain, ... tho and China isn't the same continent as the one we live in, which makes it interncontinental ("world series") and not international

Yeah but not all in one go. They've already said the 2010 calendar will have very few rounds in Europe, and one of those will be Bucharest. Russia is one that'll be added, for a start

I see what you mean, though

and GT2 cars in 1997 ran in the GT1 class in 1996.

The world championship will get off ground in 2010, but there will be 2 GT1 classes and 3 GT2 classes

1 class for new GT1's and 1 class for old GT1's, same for the GT2's + an extra class for 2l boxer engines (iirc)