The International GT Open is a

grand tourer A grand tourer (GT) is a type of car that is designed for high speed and long-distance driving, due to a combination of performance and luxury attributes. The most common format is a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive two-door coupé with either ...

-style

sports car racing Sports car racing is a form of motorsport road racing which utilises sports cars that have two seats and enclosed wheels. They may be purpose-built prototypes or grand tourers based on road-going models. Broadly speaking, sports car racing i ...

series founded in 2006 by the Spanish GT Sport Organización. It was a spin-off of the now-defunct Spanish GT Championship, but is now a distinct series featuring FIA GT3-spec cars modified from production road cars.

Format

The series consists of events in various European countries which feature two races over a weekend. In its first year, the races had an identical format to the Spanish GT Championship, with two 200 km races, the first held on Saturday and the second the following Sunday. Three of the six rounds were joint events for the Open and the Spanish GT Championship. In 2007, the first race, known as ''Pro-Am'', covers approximately 200 km distance, while the second race is 150 km and known as ''GT Open''. The only exception is the Open GT Barcelona, which is a single 300 km race. In early seasons, a few races have been a part of the

World Touring Car Championship The FIA World Touring Car Championship was an international touring car championship promoted by Eurosport Events and sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). It has had several different incarnations, including a s ...

support package. Now the first race of a weekend is 70 minutes long and the second is 60 minutes. The current support series are the

Euroformula Open Championship The Euroformula Open Championship (formerly the Spanish Formula Three Championship, European F3 Open Championship) is a junior formula racing series based in Spain. It was one of six national and international Formula Three championships in Europe ...

(formerly Spanish F3 Open) and the GT Cup Open Europe with some race weekends also featuring TCR Europe and the Alpine Elf Europa Cup. Past support series have included the

SEAT León Supercopa The SEAT León Supercopa was a one-make racing series, organised by SEAT Sport, the motorsport division of Spanish car manufacturer SEAT. It used a modified version of the SEAT León road car, and championships have been run in Spain, Germany, Ital ...

(2014-2016), and

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(2016).

Regulations

Each race consists of a field of grand touring-style cars broken into different classes based on power and weight. For 2006, two classes were used, known as GTA and GTB. GTA was equivalent to the GT2 class used in the

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, but it also allowed non-homologated cars provide they obey the FIA GT2 technical regulations. Most of the field was made up of

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GTs and

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-RSRs. Non-homologated cars like the Mosler MT900R and the

SEAT Cupra GT The SEAT Cupra GT is a GT race car made by SEAT and introduced in a world premiere first as a concept car on 24 April 2003 at the Barcelona Motor Show. The final version of the Cupra GT was presented later, produced on customer demand by the Sp ...

were also competitive. The GTB class consisted of cars usually from a manufacturer's one-make cup series, like the

Challenge, the

Cup, and the Marcos Mantis. A GTS class was created to house the FIA GT3 class, consisting mainly of

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Competition Coupes and

Lamborghini Gallardo The Lamborghini Gallardo (; ) is a sports car built by the Italian automotive manufacturer Lamborghini from 2003 to 2013. It is Lamborghini's second car released under parent company Audi, and List of best-selling automobiles, best-selling model ...

GT3s. Starting in 2015, the International GT Open began using only FIA GT3-spec cars with 2 sub-categories. The Am category is only for drivers given the "Bronze" designation by GT Sport. Pro-Am requires one Bronze driver with no restrictions on the co-driver. All other entries are scored overall with the only driver restriction being a ban on having two Platinum drivers.

Champions

Drivers

Current categories

Overall

GT3 PRO-AM

^† Title won on number of wins count back.

GT3 AM

Defunct categories

GTA

GTB

GTS

Super GT

Gentleman’s Cup

GT Open Cup

Teams

References

External links

International GT Open Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:International Gt Open Group GT3