Sprint racing in the GT3 arena under SRO's umbrella traces its origins to the FIA GT Series launched in 2013, which emerged from the dissolution of the FIA GT1 World Championship and the FIA GT3 European Championship. The format was conceived to carry forward the sprint discipline — short, intense races emphasising pace and strategy over long-distance attrition — that had characterised the defunct GT1 series.
The series initially operated separately from SRO's Blancpain Endurance Series. In 2014 it was rebranded as the Blancpain Sprint Series under Blancpain's sponsorship, then further evolved into the Blancpain GT Series Sprint Cup in 2016 when SRO integrated the sprint and endurance strands under the wider Blancpain GT Series umbrella. In 2019 the Blancpain partnership ended, and the series adopted its current identity as the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup for the 2020 season, aligning it with sister series in Asia and North America under the GT World Challenge global brand.
Each Sprint Cup event weekend delivers two one-hour races. Cars run a mandatory two-driver line-up with a compulsory driver change during a designated pit window. The format places a premium on qualifying pace, clean overtaking, and precision pit stop execution, as the shorter race duration leaves little margin for errors or strategic divergence.
Qualifying since 2018 has comprised three segments, with aggregate times determining the grid. From 2025, split qualifying sessions were introduced for Sprint Cup rounds to manage growing grid sizes, with Group A (Silver and Bronze Cup entries) and Group B (Pro and Gold Cup entries) running separate timed sessions in each segment before results are combined.
The championship exclusively races in Europe, though in earlier years the series and its predecessors ventured to Azerbaijan and Russia. By 2026 the Sprint Cup had reached a record-breaking entry of 45 cars, reflecting continued growth in GT3 participation.
The Sprint Cup operates four classes within the overall GT3 field:
Pro class cars face no driver rating restrictions and are the only cars eligible for the overall drivers' and teams' championships. Gold Cup entries combine Gold-rated and Silver-rated drivers. The Silver Cup is exclusively for Silver-rated drivers and has served since its 2018 introduction as a pathway for developing professional talent. The Bronze Cup targets the most amateur end of the driver pool, with a maximum line-up of a Platinum-rated and a Bronze-rated driver at Sprint rounds.
In 2013, the FIA GT Series was created to preserve the sprint format following the end of the FIA GT1 World Championship, though plans to unite it with an FIA GT Endurance Series under a wider FIA GT World Series umbrella were abandoned before the first season. The series became the Blancpain Sprint Series in 2014, then was renamed the Blancpain GT Series Sprint Cup in 2016 as part of SRO's unification of its European GT championships. In 2018 SRO acquired the GT World Challenge America, and the GT Asia and GT Series Sprint Cup subsequently adopted the World Challenge name, completing the formation of a global GT3 platform. The current GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup name has been in use since 2020. Amazon Web Services became the official presenter in 2020; Fanatec joined as title sponsor from 2021 through 2024.
The Sprint Cup occupies a central place in European GT3 racing as one of two pillars of the continent's premier GT championship. Its two-driver, one-hour format provides a different competitive environment from the multi-hour endurance events: lap time and raw pace matter more, and the shorter window for recovery from mistakes concentrates racing intensity. Together with the Endurance Cup, it contributes points to the GT World Challenge Europe's combined overall championship, making cross-format versatility a requirement for drivers and teams targeting the outright title.