SRO GT Academy goes global with Spa dream for young GT stars

The SRO GT Academy is scaling up. After a quiet but telling debut inside the FFSA French GT Championship, the programme is going global and pointing straight at the top of GT racing. From 2026, four young Silver drivers from around the world will earn a fully funded shot at the 2027 CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa in a shared Silver Cup entry.

For any driver building a career in GT3, that is the big one.

The concept is simple on the surface. One driver will be selected from British GT, and one each from GT World Challenge America powered by AWS, GT World Challenge Asia and GT World Challenge Australia. All four must be under 30 on 31 December 2026 and hold an FIA Silver rating for that season. They will form a four driver line up in a Silver Cup car at Spa, run by an established professional team.

You are effectively looking at a hand picked all star squad of young GT talent, drawn from four continents, in the biggest GT race of them all.

Beyond results: how SRO says it will pick its stars

SRO is keen to stress that this is not just a “best placed Silver in the standings” prize. The Academy uses an assessment based model that tries to strip away as many external variables as possible.

Rather than simply copying championship tables, the system tracks things such as:

• Qualifying pace
• Average stint times in races
• Error count and type
• Behaviour on and off the circuit

Drivers are rewarded for speed, consistency and professionalism. They are penalised for unforced errors and poor conduct. The model is also designed so that Silvers in different classes can still be compared on a fair basis.

That matters, because a sharp Silver buried in a tricky Pro Am line up can easily be hidden if you only glance at the results sheet on a Sunday night.

From French proof of concept to global platform

The SRO GT Academy ran its first “live” season in 2024 inside the FFSA French GT Championship. Gaspard Simon, then 19, came out as the standout performer. His reward is a package aimed squarely at the next rung of the ladder.

Simon receives a €150,000 contribution towards a seat in either GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup or the GT2 European Series powered by Pirelli in 2026, plus mentoring support as he moves closer to the front line of GT racing.

For 2025, the concept expands into GT2 Europe. The prize here is a seat with a Mercedes AMG Customer Racing outfit in the following season’s GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup, backed by Maserati, Ginetta, Pirelli and Mercedes AMG itself. That graduate will then join the four global Academy winners in the Spa Silver Cup car in 2027.

Put simply, SRO is starting to connect its various regional and class based ladders into something that looks much more like a joined up pathway.

Why Spa, and why the Silver Cup

The CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa remains the benchmark GT3 race. A strong performance there still carries real weight with manufacturers, customer teams and sponsors. SRO placing its Academy finale at Spa is a statement. It says the programme is not a side show. It feeds the main act.

Choosing the Silver Cup is equally deliberate. It keeps the car inside the broader customer racing ecosystem and away from full factory politics. A Silver crew that finishes high up in class, and maybe troubles the overall leaderboard on pace across the night, will attract attention very quickly.

For a young Silver, the real value is not just the free seat. It is the data, the TV time, and the chance to be measured directly against established Spa specialists.

What this means for British GT and GT World Challenge

For British GT, this is a powerful new sales line for teams running Silver graded drivers. A young racer with Spa ambitions now has one more reason to choose that paddock. The same applies to GT World Challenge America, Asia and Australia, where grids often hinge on convincing ambitious Silvers that a given series is the best use of their budget.

Teams and driver coaches will also need to think carefully about how they manage their Academy hopefuls. A driver who can bang in a pole lap but throws away races with low percentage moves will not score well. Nor will a quick youngster who behaves badly off track.

Expect to see more emphasis on full season discipline, not just hero stints in the final hour.

Ratel’s view and the bigger picture

Stéphane Ratel, SRO Motorsports Group Founder and CEO, frames the move as a natural extension of the Academy concept. The early focus has been on European series. The new prize pool brings GT World Challenge America, Asia, Australia and British GT into the tent and guarantees that Spa 2027 will feature a globally sourced Silver crew.

It also quietly reinforces SRO’s position as the place to be for career GT drivers at a time when GT3 sits at the heart of the FIA World Endurance Championship, IMSA and a growing number of national series.

From the outside, the idea feels overdue. GT racing has long needed a clearer bridge between national or regional success and “headline” events. By putting real money and a real car on the table at Spa, SRO has taken a concrete step in that direction.

The pressure now moves onto the paddocks. Young Silvers know that every qualifying lap, every stint and every debrief across 2026 could be the difference between a normal season and a call telling them they are going to Spa for free.

For once, “being watched” is exactly what they will want.