What is Pro-Am racing?
Pro-Am classes put a professional and an amateur in the same car. How the pairings are defined using FIA driver grades, who actually fills the seats, and which championships run Pro-Am classes.
A Pro-Am car is shared by a professional and an amateur. The class exists because much of sportscar racing is paid for by amateur drivers, and Pro-Am gives them a place to race good cars against each other with a fast driver alongside.
How the pairing is defined
"Professional" and "amateur" are too vague to enforce, so championships use FIA driver categorisation. Every graded driver is Platinum, Gold, Silver or Bronze, and a class is defined by which grades may share a car.
Each championship writes its own version. GT World Challenge Asia's sporting regulations define its GT3 classes this way:
| Class | Allowed pairing |
|---|---|
| Pro-Am | A Bronze with a Silver, Gold or Platinum |
| Silver | Silver and Silver only |
| Am | Bronze and Bronze only |
The Pro-Am rule does not ask for a professional. It asks for a Bronze, and lets the other seat go to anyone graded above that.
Who actually fills the seats
The rule allows a Platinum partner. Very few teams use one.
Across the Pro-Am classes we hold since 2022, these are the FIA grades of the drivers who raced in them:
| Grade | Drivers |
|---|---|
| Bronze | 172 |
| Silver | 168 |
| Gold | 47 |
| Platinum | 5 |
| No grade on file | 36 |
Bronzes and Silvers make up the large majority, in roughly equal numbers. That fits the rule: one Bronze per car, and a second seat that most teams fill with a Silver. Gold drivers appear, Platinums barely do.
The table does not say why. Cost is the obvious candidate, since a Platinum is the most expensive driver to hire, but we hold no data on what drivers are paid.
The Bronze has to drive
The Bronze driver is the reason the class exists, so championships make sure they are in the car. IMSA has set a minimum drive time for Bronze drivers in its GTD class. A team cannot enter a Bronze to qualify for the class and then keep them out of the car.
Where Pro-Am classes run
In the index, classes named Pro-Am appear mostly in North American GT and single-marque racing:
Sources print the class two ways, "Pro-Am" and "ProAm". The counts above combine both.
Some classes are Pro-Am in structure without using the name, so they are not in this table. A class called GTD or LMGT3 can carry the same kind of line-up rule under a different label.
Pro-Am, Silver and Am compared
Am puts two Bronze drivers together. It is the purest amateur class.
Silver pairs two Silver drivers. Because most people who start racing before thirty are graded Silver by default, that means young drivers still climbing alongside experienced amateurs who were never graded higher.
Pro-Am takes one of each end: a Bronze and a partner graded above them.
For how the grades themselves are awarded, and how poorly they track outright speed, see FIA driver categorisation explained.
Grade counts are distinct drivers who started a race in a class named Pro-Am or ProAm from 2022 onward, using the FIA grade on file in the RacerDB index. Class definitions from the GT World Challenge Asia sporting regulations.