GT Sport Organización, which celebrates in 2023 its 25th season of racing activities, is one of the leading race promoters and organizers in Europe. It created and runs the International GT Open, the Euroformula Open and the GT Cup Europe and its event platform has been used over the years by numerous international, national and mono-brand series.
The company was established in Madrid in 1998 by former driver Jesús Pareja, who has been a successful contender in GT and Sportcar races in the 80s and 90s.He won the 1000 km of Jerez (1986) and Suzuka (1994), the 4 hrs of Jarama and Paul Ricard (1994), and finished 2nd overall in the 24 hrs of Le Mans 1986 and Daytona 1994. He won the GT class at Le Mans in 1994. From 1986 to 1991, he was a member in the World Sportscar Championship of the very successful Brun Motorsport, the Swiss squad that was crowned World Champion in 1986.
The first series created by GT Sport was the Spanish / IBER GT Championship in 1999, followed in 2000 by the Spanish F3 Championship, which took the helm from the F.Toyota 2000, which together with the F.Toyota 1300 had joined the GT Sport platform in 1999. The new Spanish F.3 series kept Toyota engines and adopted new, modern Dallara chassis. It ran in such form until 2008, with direct technical and marketing support of Toyota until 2006.
During that period, GT Sport also organized in Spain a number of mono-brand trophies on behalf of manufacturers such as SEAT, Hyundai, Peugeot and Mini. The company’s capabilities and expertise has also been at the service of major international series and FIA championship, as the company was regularly called to serve as the local promoter in Spain and Portugal for events of the World Touring Car Championship (WTCC).
One notable highlight in that period was the organization of the inaugural event at the Valencia Street Circuit in July 2008, which featured rounds of GT Sport’s International GT Open and Spanish F.3, and served to homologate the track for the Formula 1 Grand-Prix.
GT Sport’s international expansion started in 2006, with the launch of the International GT Open, with GT2 cars at the time, and now established as one of the top GT3 series in the continent. Also the single-seater series of GT Sport went European, in 2009, becoming the European F.3 Open and retaining its technical package of Dallara chassis and Toyota engine until 2019, which meant a 20-year tenure with the powerplant of the Japanese constructor.
Over the years, GT Sport’s European platform has acquired greater and greater prestige, due to high level of professionalism in organizing the events and TV/webstream coverage of them and the quality of the venues, which have always included top F.1 tracks (Monza, Barcelona, Paul Ricard, Spa-Francorchamps, Red Bull Ring, Algarve, Hungaroring have been the most visited, but the list also includes Mugello, Estoril, Valencia, Magny-Cours, Imola, Nürburgring, Hockenheimring and others). This has led numerous top international series to join the GT Sport-organized events.
Renault (with the World Series FR 3.5, the F.Renault Eurocup 2.0, the Clio Cup and the Alpine Elf Cup Europe), Italy’s ACI Sport (with the F.Abarth Europe, the Italian F.4 Championship and the F.Regional European Championship by Alpine), Porsche (with the German and French Porsche Carrera Cups), and TCR (with its International, Europe and World Tour series) are among the most faithful partners putting their confidence in GT Sport, but the list of past and present customers also includes the FIA Formula 2 of the ‘Palmer era’, France’s FFSA (with the F.Academy and the French F.4 Championship), the Spanish F.4 Championship, the Maserati Trophy, European mono-brand trophies by SEAT and Peugeot and by racing constructors such as Radical and Catheram, the Boss GP featuring classic F.1 cars, etc
GT Sport’s own series continued to evolve and expand: along the constant growth of the International GT Open, the European F3 Open climbed a further step in 2014 becoming the Euroformula Open and adopting the Dallara 320 chassis and HWA and Spiess engines in 2019 to become one of the key ladders in the international formulae pyramid. In 2019, a junior GT series was launched, the GT Cup Europe, open to GT4s and cars from the GT mono-brand series.
