THE SEASON

Ten years of Gran Turismo at the top

It is one of the many Gran Turismo challenges that go beyond national borders. The International GT Open is a series of motor racing competitions for the GT2 and GT3 categories. The specialty, of Spanish origin, was born in 2006 on the initiative of Jesús Pareja, a former driver in the Sports Prototype sector, with almost the same rules as the national championship, but is also open to non-Iberian competitors, as the name suggests. With the years following the first, the races were also extended to prestigious European tracks.

The races are structured in two heats, which have had different times and methods from the origins to today: 200 km each in 2006, a first of 200 km and a second of 150 km in 2007, a 65-minute race and another from 45 minutes in 2008, finally from a 70-minute race and the second from 60 minutes starting from the 2009 season. Except for the inaugural edition, the first and longest race is called "PRO AM" and the second "Open" . Since the 2011 season, most of the Ferrari F430s have been replaced with the newer 458 Italias, but more exotic and rare models from various brands have also entered the championship.

It immediately aroused interest from the public and from important European teams, with the participation of major manufacturers such as Ferrari, Mosler, Viper, Ascari, Ford, Porsche, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Corvette, Lotus, McLaren, AMG Mercedes, Jaguar, Audi , BMW, Nissan, Radical and Maserati. The championship regulations are established in the logic of cost reduction and containment, while guaranteeing stable rules, excellent TV coverage, premium locations for your appointments and controlled investments. The 2015 International GT Open calendar, that of the tenth anniversary, consisted of 7 rounds with free admission for 14 races.

The weekend program is sufficiently articulated to allow those who race to spend as much time as possible behind the wheel: Friday, free practice; Saturday, two qualifying sessions to establish the starting order of the two races and in the afternoon the first race of the weekend with a duration of 70 minutes, while the second takes place on Sunday with a "limited" journey of one hour.

The International GT Open, the first series in history to adopt a time handicap system for very high performance cars, instead of complex and expensive technical measures, is a real success in progress. The numbers remind us of this: 7 countries visited; 18 manufacturers represented officially or privately; television coverage on 5 continents, including 109 countries live and 123 countries deferred; more than 2,500 hours of TV broadcasts worldwide; 250,000 articles in the context of media coverage by the generalist and specialized press; 18.5 million visits to the website http://www.gtopen.net/; a commercial value of the brand and product of over 60 million euros.