CEC is ready for the 2025 season. A new GTL group is established | An article to understand the new rules

The new season of CEC is approaching, and the 2025 China Automobile Endurance Championship sports rules have also been released recently. This season's endurance national competition will upgrade many rules, and in a daring and innovative way, create a broader and more professional endurance competition platform for all participants in the new year.

01
Four major cups are on the field:

Grouping adjustment attracts attention, newly established GTL group

With fierce competition in multiple groups, CEC has become the most watched automobile endurance event in China with high-level endurance duels for 7 seasons. In 2025, while continuing to set up the three major cups of GT Cup, Manufacturer Cup and National Cup, CEC introduced a new unified specification cup. The four newly opened cups will cover prototypes, GT, TCE, mass-produced cars and other types of cars with various power forms to compete on the same field.

In the new season of GT Cup, the powerful players have a new group to choose from - the newly established GTL group. In today's global GT racing events, Chinese teams rely more on European factory cars and related technologies, including the purchase of complete vehicles and engineering teams, which are all from Europe and the United States. The newly established GTL group is a new group in the CEC China Automobile Endurance Championship GT Cup, which allows Chinese clubs to purchase supercars on their own and modify them according to the rules of the competition to meet the requirements of the competition rules before participating in the GT Cup. The cars in this group must be built based on mass-produced supercars, and the modified vehicles must meet the specific requirements of the event in terms of safety, performance balance and technical specifications to ensure the fairness and viewing of the competition. At that time, the GTL group will run parallel to the existing prototype, GT3, GT4, GTC, TCE and other groups. The flagship competition of the most popular GT3 group will continue to be the focus of the CEC-GT Cup this season.

The National Cup is a cup competition set up by the CEC China Automobile Endurance Championship since the 2021 season. This cup competition continues to attract the largest number of participating drivers and teams with high-level competitions. This year, the rules of this cup competition will also be completely reshuffled in the new season. The original 1600A and 1600B groups, which had extremely fierce competition, will be merged to form a new 1600 group to continue the invisible smoke of previous seasons. The new 2.0T group came into being in the National Cup. This group that is about to emerge will attract large-displacement models of 2.0T and above to participate. The 2.0T group will also represent the highest performance of the National Cup group and form a new National Cup group with the 1600T group, 2000 group, and 1600.

The CEC unified specification group first appeared in the endurance national competition in the 2023 season. This group was in the trial and exploration stage in the past two seasons, so it was integrated into the competition with the manufacturer cup/national cup events. In the 2025 season, the unified specification racing car of CEC will have a more independent competition environment. CEC has created a new unified specification group cup for it------Unified Specification Cup. The organizing committee will provide participating vehicles for this cup, and the vehicle types will include AT group and MT group. The emergence of the unified cup will surely help more racing stars realize their dream of participating in high-end endurance events at a lower cost.

02
Competition system adjustment strategy upgrade: GT Cup welcomes another major innovation

In the 2025 season, CEC-GT Cup, as the top category of the national endurance competition, will also usher in major adjustments to its competition system in the new season. Compared with the 2024 season, the schedule is more compact and intense. Specifically, the GT Cup will be adjusted from the 2024 season's one official practice session, one qualifying session, and the pre-finals + 150-minute race to two official practice sessions, two qualifying sessions, and two rounds of 90 minutes each + the lead car final.

The Manufacturer Cup/National Cup still continues the competition rules of two stages of 120 minutes each + the lead car. In addition, the major cups are expected to present a 4-hour endurance final competition at some stations.

The strategic game will also become more exciting with the updated competition system. The GT Cup has issued new rules for the 90-minute finals - that is, all registered drivers must complete the driving in the same field, complete at least two pit stops per game, and must complete one refueling and change. This mandatory pit stop rule adjustment will allow the team to better demonstrate teamwork and strategic skills in endurance races, and the complex tactical application will further enhance the viewing experience of the event.

The number of tires used by each group of cars in each race will also be strictly limited in the 2025 season. Taking the GT Cup as an example, in each race, the team can only use a limited number of tires, and all tires must be purchased and marked through official designated channels. For teams that do not use marked tires in accordance with the rules, they will face a fine of RMB 5,000 per tire. This change requires more precise tire management for the team, and for the driver, effective tire management must be done during the race to achieve the best performance.

New Year, New Atmosphere. The CEC China Automobile Endurance Championship has further upgraded and optimized the competition environment in terms of competition structure, group settings and detailed rules, and further created a competition platform that is in line with the world arena. In addition, the preliminary schedule of CEC 2025 has also been released:

In an era of change and opportunity, all kinds of players are ready to go, and look forward to the CEC event starting a new journey in the 2025 season. The Endurance National Championship will reward the participating drivers and fans with professionalism and viewing pleasure, bringing everyone a more exciting racing experience and visual feast. Now, the registration process for the 2025 CEC has officially started. Please contact the event specialist to start your 2025 speeding life!