On Saturday, December 5th 2020, it was revealed to the world that yet another real world car was being co-developed by iRacing: the BMW M4 GT3. Those of us watching the BMW SIM 120 stream had already had our minds blown by the announcement that Fanatec was building the actual wheel to be used both in the real car and with their simulator products, and this announcement was something we were very much not expecting.
Although iRacing has promised to deliver the car in time for Christmas, the version that will be released is a "pre release" version. Much like the Long Beach tech track it is not a fully realized product, and will be replaced later in 2021 by the official release version of the car. Because of this, the car will not be eligible for entry in the Ricmotech World Challenge upon its release.
In addition to the poorly kept secret of the Lamborghini Huracan, it appears iRacing is indeed preparing an entirely new GT3 class for competition on the service. Once either of those cars is released in a full competition version, or any other cars in development we still don't know about, it will be eligible for inclusion in the World Challenge. As a general rule, each time a new car is released in a "ready to compete" status it will replace the least popular car in the class; GT3 and GTE will remain capped at 3 entries each. As always, new cars must be released before round 2 of any season to be eligible for competition in any series.
We hope you are as excited as we are about the new tracks and these new cars; additionally, we hope you understand our decision to not include this car in the series until development is complete.