The best race series in Britain?

The British GT Championship is the best national series in the UK. It's a bold statement - one that certainly wouldn't have been true even a few years ago, and one made while the ever-popular British Touring Car Championship is going through arguably its strongest period since the Super Touring glory days.

It's also a stretch too far. British GT racing is a world apart from where it was a decade ago, but in a game of Top Trumps the BTCC undoubtedly has the edge.

That's not to say there isn't a serious argument to be made that the GTs deserve greater mainstream attention.

THE BIG ATTRACTION

"It's proper," says Triple Eight boss Ian Harrison, having added GTs to his BTCC programme last season, "with professional teams and amateur drivers spending a lot of money."

Star cars turned out by some of the top GT, single-seater and touring car outfits in the world are a mark of the quality within the series, and it's also important to stress that on a driver basis the pros operate at a very high level.

At the British GT Spa round in July, Le Mans 24 Hours victors Emmanuel Collard and Toni Vilander drove an AF Ferrari 458 each. Vilander led briefly, but neither troubled the podium finishers and both were matched if not outpaced by the regular frontrunners.

Factory drivers such as Alexander Sims (BMW), Jonny Adam (Aston Martin) and Steven Kane (Bentley) add weight to the roster, but rising and established GT stars such as Warren Hughes, Adam Carroll and Tom Onslow-Cole ensure the spread of talent does not run thin.

The Barwell-run Ecurie Ecosse BMW is currently leading the GT3 standings © LAT

The GT4 sub-class has taken flack in previous years, but if single-seater and GT young guns alike (think Dan Cammish or Oliver Basey-Fisher) can get on to the sportscar ladder and prove their worth, it's another feather in the championship's cap.

British GT is a Pro-Am series, although some of the second class of drivers run their pro counterparts close and the majority are anything but 'amateur'. They are the foundation for the series and can throw up some unpredictable racing, even though in the end all-pro racing is a bigger draw.

THE BIG ISSUE

It's no secret that the Achilles heel of British GT is its media exposure. It's a sore point in the paddock. There's little point in having an attractive product if nobody knows it exists.

That's an extreme metaphor, because British GT does get people through the gates, although the numbers rarely rise above five figures. Beyond domestic die-hards and enduro aficionados it's a hidden gem.

"It's all about awareness," says Harrison. "Everyone knows about touring cars because it's on TV."

In 2013, British GT's three-hour Silverstone showpiece was aired live, as was the season finale at Donington Park. For this year, BT Sport highlights have been added to the existing Channel 4 recap, but there have been no live races (Silverstone was delayed and broadcast 'as live').

Series promoter Stephane Ratel has pledged live coverage for every British GT round in 2015, though that promise came without a firm plan in place - and that's not good enough given the perceived delay in finally making regular live TV a reality.

Part of that must come as part of a wider commercial overhaul for the series. Race promotion is handled by the circuits hosting each particular meeting, which puts a significant part of the championship's exposure at the mercy of a third party, and the majority of the series' online coverage comes from the teams themselves.

The issue is that ramping up promotion - in a wider sense, not just television coverage - comes at a cost and the feeling among paddock insiders is the British GT arm of SRO is being managed on a shoestring. What the Blancpain series get as SRO's flagship championships, British GT longs for.

Value for money is considered one of the series' strong points, and although some teams have suggested increased fees would be accepted if it brought a proper TV deal with it, there are still costs to be covered that at present come out of a prospective TV budget.

Media exposure is British GT's main problem © LAT

"Media is our weakness," admits series boss Benjamin Franassovici. "We know it and we've worked on it. We had 15,000 people at Oulton Park, although at Rockingham I expected more than we got. We've been going to radio and targeting people. When you're weak and have an increase people don't notice.

"I want more TV. It depends on a couple of things. We spend a lot on tracks and it consumes a lot of money we'd like to spend on TV.

"TV is the first place I'd put money into - it's on my Christmas list for Stephane. I want them all live."

Another area that has brought criticism is errors from race control that have decided races. Lee Mowle, a partner at Triple Eight and co-driver to Joe Osborne in one of the team's Z4s, believes organisation and profile go hand in hand.

"It needs to be professionally run, with a set of rules consistently applied," he argues. "Improved TV coverage will only come if the championship is seen as something other than a rich man's hobby, and right now it's exactly that."

THE BIG QUESTION

Short, sharp racing is an obvious caveat for the casual fan and, to state the obvious, keeping spectators interested is much easier when the action's in 25-minute bursts.

"If you're part of GT and sportscar racing, you love it," argues Mike Jordan, father and team boss to BTCC champion Andrew, as well as a former British GT frontrunner.

"But apart from Le Mans it doesn't attract the spectators. Unless you are a real fan, are you going to work out the pitstops and strategies? The BTCC is much more punchy."

Can endurance racing entertain the masses? It's an issue inherent to the discipline, but another aspect of British GT that draws praise is the variety in race length, with a mix of 60-minute and two-hour races plus a three-hour event at Silverstone.

That splits the difference between the 'sprint' and 'endurance' Blancpain categories: longer races are defined by strategy (appealing to the teams) and shorter races are closer and decided more on-track (a plus for the fans).

This year's long-distance races have so far produced dominant winners, but the two one-hour races at Spa were won in the final few laps, and two of this season's other six races have ended with the top two cars separated by only half a second.

"The stability of the format is attractive, although we tweak it every year based on who we are attracting, and we take care of the driver pairing balance," Franassovici says. "It's become more competitive and it's still got a really good atmosphere.

"The cocktail is pretty good - I think we're the coolest GT championship in Europe."