Last month's Bahrain 8 Hours marked the final competitive outing for GTE machinery following the decision by FIA and ACO to drop the corresponding class from WEC and the European Le Mans Series next year.
GTE cars have been a staple of WEC since the rebirth of the world sportscar championship in 2012, with a number of manufacturers including Porsche, Ferrari, Ford, BMW and Corvette building cars to this set of regulations.
The GTE Pro category in particular was hugely popular among drivers and fans in mid-to-late 2010s, but the class had been on a dramatic decline even before the Hypercar division was introduced in 2021.
GTE Pro was phased out from WEC at the end of the 2022 season, with the GTE Am class also now being dropped by the championship in favour of a new category running GT3 cars next year.
Although the difference between GTE and GT3 cars is not dramatic when it comes to performance, GTE cars were designed more like thoroughbred racers and thus were hugely appealing to professional drivers.
Porsche-contracted Matteo Cairoli, who scored three GTE Am wins in the Porsche 911 RSR-19, said the new GT3 cars will simply not be as enjoyable to drive as their predecessors.
"For me, GTE is going to be for sure the best GT car ever," the Italian told Autosport.
"Of course, GT3 is also a nice car to drive, but GTE is a professional car so you have to adapt your driving style more than what you do in a GT3 car.
"I enjoyed every single lap I did in the past seven years and I'm a bit sad to see the end of this amazing car.
"For sure, [the LMGT3 class] is going to be exciting because we will have a lot of constructors and a lot of cars. And I think the fight will be always on.
"But the pleasure of driving is not going to be the same anymore. Because GT3 cars it's more [of] a road car. It's similar to a road car.
"Here [in GTE] it's more onto the prototype side. As a show, it's going to be very good but the pleasure behind the wheel for sure not."
Source: Autosport