Exclusive: Stephane Ratel on Verstappen and Rossi, what they have done for GT racing, how he pushed GT racing into a golden age and more!

(Credit: SRO/JEP)

Stephane Ratel is a pioneer who has pushed GT racing to the forefront of the motorsport industry. The Frenchman founded various GT racing championships across the world, which are now thriving. Ratel has played a fundamental role in creating the new ‘golden age’ of Sportscar racing that we see today.

In this exclusive interview, DIVEBOMB’s Owen Bradley sits down with Ratel to discuss the importance of star names entering GT racing, the origins of the GT World Challenge, and how he pushed GT racing through difficulty and into a glorious new golden age.

In 2026, GT racing has seen huge growth in popularity, as has the larger Sportscar world with the World Endurance Championship (WEC) and IMSA. Formula One World Champion, Max Verstappen competed at the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring back in May, an event which saw a record-breaking attendance figure.

Speaking about the start of the 2026 season for GT racing, Ratel revealed: “Amazing! I always say, when you have 18 children, like we have 18 championships, you always have one or two causing you problems, but globally it’s a fact that GT racing is growing in popularity and we’re benefiting from that, it’s as simple as that. 

“It’s not been an overnight success, because we have been at it for 32 years, but finally it’s really attracting an audience, which is growing at a fast pace now thanks to some great ambassadors such as Valentino Rossi, Max Verstappen also, that really brings a lot of attention to the category.”

He added: “I think you need to know about GT racing to like it, because the cars are amazing, they are very very close, very exciting - the grids are huge, the level of competition is extremely high and I think anybody who likes racing or likes cars, if you get to know what we’re doing, you’ll like it, it’s as simple as that. 

“With more and more people knowing about it, more people like it, the more people tell their friends and the more people are coming to the events.”

When F1 champion Verstappen competed in several NLS races at the Nurburgring before then racing at the iconic 24 Hours of the Nürburgring in May, the figures spoke for themselves. 280,000 fans attended the race in 2025, but 352,000 fans were in attendance for the 2026 edition of the race featuring the F1 driver.

(Credit: Joerg Mitter/Red Bull Content Pool)

MotoGP legend, Valentino Rossi, has been competing in the GTWC since 2022 after his 26-year long career racing motorcycles. The Italian has enjoyed great success in GT racing, taking three victories at the Misano round of the GTWC Europe across 2023, 2024 and 2025. 

With two icons of motorsport taking time out of their schedules or re-focusing their career to race in the championship, it has led to more mainstream interest in GT racing.

When asked why the likes of Verstappen and Rossi are joining GT racing specifically, and not another championship, Ratel stated: “I think because it’s the magic of Balance of Performance (BoP). Many championships are about technical competition, so if you’re in the right car in the right year - you have a chance of success. 

“Here, I would say the system is of course not perfect because nobody can achieve perfection with something as complex as BoP, where you have so many parameters.”

He continued: “In evaluation, if you put exactly the same parameters on the cars to do a 24-hour race, you will see a variation of the performances within the 24 hours. With brake bias, temperature, grip, whatever you do, it cannot be perfect by definition, but it’s close and it allows drivers to compete on an equal footing.

“That’s the general feeling, and it’s why it’s attracting a lot of drivers. Very competitive drivers. I’m certain that Max’s interest in the category was that, and he wanted to prove something, and he proved it. What he achieved at the Nürburgring was stellar, absolutely stellar.”

Some sports icons become even more popular than the sport that they compete in. For example, Mike Tyson with Boxing, Tiger Woods with Golf, Lewis Hamilton with F1 and Valentino Rossi with MotoGP.

The Italian transcended the sport and pushed the brand to become one of the world’s most recognised sportspeople today, whilst being the face of the championship. 

When Rossi retired from MotoGP in 2021, the sport was notably experiencing attendance issues at some races. At the British Grand Prix in 2025, the event recorded just 99,328 fans across three days, with previous attendance figures reaching 150,000 a few years prior.

When asked what has been the driving force behind the growth of attendance figures for the GTWC, Ratel responded: “For many years, I used to say the person who will have the biggest impact in what we do, would be Valentino Rossi. Truly, it’s because he was bigger than his sport. We had at the start of GT racing a good number of former Formula One drivers.

(Credit: SRO/JEP)

“At the time, even Alain Prost came, and I would say their appeal was fading relatively rapidly. It would be exciting at the first event, but I remember asking Bernie Ecclestone once about that, and he said ‘Stephane, Formula One drivers are stars, as long as they are in Formula One. The moment they step out, they just become normal.’ That was exactly, word-to-word what he said to me, but in reality he was not wrong.”

He continued: “Valentino, he was in the category of Roger Federer, Michael Jordan, people that are huge in the sport and have an appeal bigger than their sport - Valentino was one of those. Max is a bit different, for a current F1 driver, in between races go and do the 24 Hours of Nürburgring. 

“I think it’s the first time that’s happened since the 1960’s/1970’s where F1 drivers were Sportscar drivers and that’s fantastic, it made it unique, suddenly it’s ‘wow we can see this guy normally in the F1, now let’s see what they’re worth here’ and Max, of course, showed it in a monstrous way at the Nurburgring what he’s worth.”

Big stars and huge names can add a lot of interest to a championship. Every championship across the world automatically has one story to tell, who will be the champion of the series? However, when there are star drivers and more public interest, people pick out various other storylines as well.

In the GTWC, there are some huge names and surnames. The 2026 GTWC Europe grid has seen the likes of the aforementioned Rossi, Lance Stroll, Arthur Leclerc, Markus Winklehock, Lorenzo Patrese, Aurelian Panis and Roberto Merhi. 

“Whether they compete in F1 simultaneously, have competed in F1 or have fathers who raced in F1, their star power generates interest in the GTWC, as well as Verstappen who generated interest in the Intercontinental GT Challenge.

When asked if the GTWC will see any other big names compete soon, Ratel said: “We hear some, but I leave the teams to announce it when they finalise it. There have been articles mentioning that Kimi Antonelli could be doing something, which is the first one we heard of, but there could be others. It’s a fun playing field for them to demonstrate their talent.”

A few months ago rumours circulated that current F1 championship leader, Kimi Antonelli, may also explore the GT racing path at some point. The young Italian also revealed that he would like to race with Max Verstappen in an endurance race in the future. Should he wish to, it could well be possible. It is well known that the youngster's father runs his own GT3 team. 

In an exclusive interview with DIVEBOMB, Arthur Leclerc also revealed that he would like to drive in an endurance race with brother and Ferrari F1 driver, Charles Leclerc. 

When asked what he had envisioned GT racing could be when he first started, Ratel revealed: “The first series was the BPR GT championship, which was the beginning. It’s the same championship, it’s just changed names, it’s been the same championship since 1994. Exclusive GT cars, not mixed with prototypes, exclusive Grand Touring cars on a long distance format. 

“It was the BPR, it became the FIA GT Championship, then it became the Blancpain GT Series and then it became the GT World Challenge powered by AWS. It’s basically been the same championship for all these years. 

“From the beginning, I was convinced that there was potential in GT racing, because 32 years ago you would look at news stands and you would see that 80% of the car magazine was GT cars. For me, that was always a sign. 

“I always thought, if publications put Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin and Porsche’s to sell their magazine, it was because the general public is interested in these cars. 

“I had some common sense that these cars should be close to the top of motorsport, I always believed that because it’s common sense! It took a lot more time than I thought to arrive here, but at the end of the day it’s proving itself. 

He added: “Specifically, what the SRO is doing is different from IMSA, different from Le Mans, which are prototype racing with some GT’s, we always use GT’s independently. We only have two championships that mix the GT classes, but the rest are exclusively a GT3 championship, a GT2 championship, or a GT4 championship. 

“The traditional format of Le Mans is also something different. You have all the excitement of the GT traffic, but our model was always to separate the different classes.”

(Credit: SRO/JEP)

In mainstream videogames, films and music videos, Grand Touring cars and Supercars are exceptionally popular. The Forza Horizon and Gran Turismo series’ currently dominate the mainstream videogame scene for racing games, and feature various GT cars to market their game.

In film, the 007 franchise has become synonymous with the Aston Martin brand, and specifically the DB5 model. In Goldeneye, the film opens with two characters racing one another in the mountains. It pits the DB5 up against the Ferrari F355. 

In music, iconic band Jamiroquai have taken inspiration from the Ferrari logo to create an album cover, as well as supercars being featured in their music video for “Cosmic Girl.” 

Grand Touring cars continue to be iconic across a multitude of different mediums, and Ratel’s thought process that the cars can also become popular in the motorsport industry has ultimately been proven to be correct.

When asked why it took longer than he initially thought to get GT racing to be where he wanted it to be, Ratel said: “When you start from nothing, it just takes time. 

“Grand Touring racing stopped in the late 1970’s, because of the oil shock in 1979, which put a lot of Sportscar manufacturers in difficulty, they had to make choices and many of them were bankrupt and went through a hard time, the other ones had to choose between Formula One and Sportscar Racing, and in general they chose F1 at that time, so it was stopped. 

“We had a time of 14/15 years where there was no GT racing, for some years they still raced at Le Mans, but then even at Le Mans we were replaced. You had C1 and C2, you didn’t have GT racing anymore. When we restarted it in 1994, we started from a blank piece of paper, we started from scratch. 

“You had DTM and Touring Cars and these were dominating the market, but progressively we have prevailed over these championships. We had a very small niche of the market, and then somehow, you grow at the expense of others. 

“We had a feeling for some time that motorsport’s popularity was going down as well, F1 was going down, and Liberty Media and Drive to Survive have brought it back. Firstly, you have to think of the big picture, racing was back on the map big time. 

“10 years ago, I remember my son asking me ‘do you think you will have a business in 10 years?’ because of the environmental issues and a certain loss of interest in motorsport, starting with F1. Suddenly, F1 was back big time, and what was fantastic for us, the WEC started to grow and then the arrival of Ferrari into WEC. 

“Suddenly, for all of the young drivers who only wanted a career in Formula One, they saw that there was something else, not only Formula’s. They can become factory drivers in GT cars or prototypes. Then, it really became a healthy economy because the biggest problem we have in motorsport is called the ‘boom and burst’. 

“We had this boom and burst of GT1 and GT2. The categories became popular, manufacturers invested into it, but they invested into it asking their marketing department and finance department to put in the money. 

“As long as finance and marketing agree on the figures, they’ll stay. The moment they say that they have spent too much money compared to the returns, then it would be better off buying advertising on TV or sponsorship in football or tennis, and then they stop. 

“You could also have a bad year or an industrial accident which you can’t rule out. As long as you rely on manufacturers, you are unstable. That’s what I learned very quickly in 1997 with the FIA GT. 

“We started with privateers, we attracted the manufacturers like Mercedes, BMW, McLaren, Chrysler, Porsche and the rest of them, they overspend and then it’s dead. Then you restart, overspend and it’s dead again. 

He continued: “So, we had to build a model which would protect us from that, which was to go back on the essential ingredient of customer racing, which some manufacturers support, which is welcome when it comes, but which is not essential. It’s great when they put in more effort.

“Audi left the championship completely 2 years ago, but you still have Audi’s running. The teams are there so long as the manufacturer keeps supplying parts, and it does not bother us. 

“Of course it’s good with a manufacturer because they are going to invest more money and buy more space, but you don’t depend on them. Manufacturers are nice to have but they are not a must-have.”

(Credit: Gruppe C Photography)

This sentiment that customer racing is pivotal in a championship’s longevity is true. In Formula One, there is a strong focus on manufacturers, but there are also several customer teams as well. 

This is also mirrored in just about every class of motorsport, individual teams play a huge role in boosting grid numbers and allowing more stability, as they are typically committed to a small range of championships, whereas a manufacturer is more likely to commit to more championships, but could change which championships.

Drivers such as Christopher Haase, who is the most experienced driver on the GTWC grid, have gone from being factory drivers with Audi, to now driving for Audi customer teams like Eastalent and Sainteloc racing.

When asked if there is a particular driver or manufacturer who has impressed him, Ratel revealed: “We’ve had really great drivers over time, I don’t like to name them because I may forget others but we’ve had guys which at certain times, were the best. 

“Where they would really make a difference compared to others on the grid. With a specific car, I would say my favourite of all time was the Ferrari 550 Prodrive Maranello, that was a superb machine. 

“It came at a time when GT racing was dying and I had to start the new project by getting a group of investors to finance a Ferrari car, and they didn’t want to hear it. 

“So, we financed an Italian company to develop the car, Prodrive then made another car and it became the most profitable failure ever! We failed in the private development with Ferrari, but it brought the 550, and that restarted it all.”

He added: “At some point, GT1 had died, GT2 was not attracting, we renamed it GT, we had some Vipers, older Porsche’s, but we were dead. The 550, boom, the beauty, the sound, the performance, it went on to win at Le Mans in GT, and that car attracted Lamborghini to go to Reiter and develop, and then Aston Martin with the DBR9 and then it went whoosh!”

Many people have stated that the 2020’s have brought about a new golden age for Sportscar racing. With higher attendance figures, star drivers, increased manufacturer interest and more races being added to Endurance racing calendars, it is difficult to disagree.

Asked for his opinion on if we are living in a new golden age for Sportscars and Endurance, Ratel responded: “Oh yeah, absolutely! 100%. Only, I would say, the media and the media attention is still not at the level that it deserves. I really believe that. It’s all just F1, F1, F1. Good, but if you look at the interest of the public, it’s not insignificant, it’s starting to hold a place on the market.”

(Credit: SRO/JEP)

Whilst championships like the GT World Challenge and the Intercontinental GT Challenge are growing exponentially, some mainstream motorsport media companies have not been covering its growth overall, or have only focused on Verstappen racing at the Nürburgring.

Despite the current huge success of the SRO and various GT championships, it has not been a straightforward or easy journey, and it has taken years to build the series into what it is today. 

Reflecting on his career and asked if he would have any advice for himself if he could time travel to the very start, Ratel stated: “It’s quite funny. Somebody once told me that I don’t give up. But that can lead to failure, the biggest failure was the GT1 World Championship. 

“We had a fantastic first year, 24 GT1’s, two teams of two cars, just like F1, six manufacturers, a global calendar. At the end of 2011, Jean Todt announced that he will do the WEC, so there will be another world championship for GT cars. At that moment, I should have pulled the plug, especially because we had the Blancpain GT series already.” 

He added: “Maybe out of vanity, out of not wanting to give up, I continued. That’s an example where I insisted too much. That was probably my biggest business error, because I should have pulled the plug, especially with the cost of a world championship. 

“On the other hand, GT4, thank God we didn’t give up because now it’s one of the most important categories. Maybe I shouldn’t have insisted too much sometimes, but other times you don’t want to give up and you have to continue.”