Gerard Grouve (born 13-10-1961) is owner of Grouve Sports Management Group and specialized in driver and team manager. He is best known for his role as team director of the 2008 LMP2 Le Mans winning team of Van Merksteijn Motorsport and their involvement in the

World Rally Championship The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is an international rallying series owned and governed by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, FIA. Inaugurated in 1973, it is the oldest FIA world championship after Formula One. E ...

. Grouve started his career in 1985 as co-driver for Peter van Merksteijn Sr. in the

Audi 80 The Audi 80 is a compact executive car produced by the Audi subdivision of the Volkswagen Group across four generations from 1966 to 1996. It shared its platform with the Volkswagen Passat from 1973 to 1986 and was available as a Saloon (autom ...

quattro and the

Ford Sierra Cosworth The Ford Sierra RS Cosworth is a high-performance version of the Ford Sierra that was built by Ford of Europe, Ford Europe from 1986 to 1992. It was the result of a Ford Motorsport project with the purpose of producing an outright winner for Gro ...

in the Dutch rally championship. After retiring as co-driver he took the position of team manager until 1996 when Van Merksteijn switched to circuit racing. In 2000 Grouve resumed his motorsport career as team principal of System Force Motorsport competing in the

Porsche Supercup The Porsche Supercup (officially known as Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup, known as Porsche Michelin Supercup prior to 2007 and often abbreviated as PSC) is an international One-design racing, one-make production stock car racing series supporting the ...

and from 2002 in

Belcar The Belcar Endurance Championship is the top-tier national endurance racing championship in Belgium. The series is sanctioned by the Royal Automobile Club of Belgium and run by Circuit Zolder. History The Belcar series has its roots in the e ...

FIA GT Championship The FIA GT Championship was a sports car racing series organized by the Stéphane Ratel Organisation (SRO) at the behest of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The championship was mostly concentrated in Europe, but throughout ...

Grand-Am Grand-Am Road Racing or Grand-Am was an auto racing sanctioning body that was established in 1999 to organize road racing competitions in North America. Its primary focus was the Rolex Sports Car Series, an endurance racing championship series. I ...

24 hours of Daytona The 24 Hours of Daytona, also known as the Rolex 24 At Daytona for sponsorship reasons, is a 24-hour sports car racing, sports car Endurance racing (motorsport), endurance race held annually at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Flo ...

and

Le Mans Series The European Le Mans Series (abbreviated as ELMS) is a European sports car racing endurance series inspired by the 24 Hours of Le Mans race and organized by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO). The European Le Mans Series is similar to the ...

with a

Porsche 996 GT3 The Porsche 911 GT3 is a high-performance homologation model of the Porsche 911 sports car. It is a range of high-performance models, which began with the 1973 911 Carrera RS. The GT3 has had a successful racing career in the one-make national ...

RS. The team ran in 2005 a Spyker C8 Spyder GT2-R during 2 races in the Le Mans Series and the

ALMS Alms (, ) are money, food, or other material goods donated to people living in poverty. Providing alms is often considered an act of Charity (practice), charity. The act of providing alms is called almsgiving. Etymology The word ''alms'' come ...

12 Hours of Sebring The 12 Hours of Sebring is an annual motorsport Endurance racing (motorsport), endurance race for Sports car racing, sports cars held at Sebring International Raceway, on the site of the former Hendricks Army Airfield World War II air base in S ...

. In 2008, Grouve became director of the newly formed team of Van Merksteijn Motorsport which won the

24 hours of Le Mans The 24 Hours of Le Mans () is an endurance-focused Sports car racing, sports car race held annually near the city of Le Mans, France. It is widely considered to be one of the world's most prestigious races, and is one of the races—along with ...

and the Le Mans Series in

LMP2 A Le Mans Prototype (LMP) is a type of sports prototype race car used in various races and championships, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans, FIA World Endurance Championship, IMSA SportsCar Championship, European Le Mans Series, and Asian Le M ...

with the

Porsche RS Spyder The RS Spyder (Type 9R6) is a racing car designed by Porsche in conjunction with Penske to compete in Le Mans Prototype Class 2 (LMP2) racing. The car takes its name from the legendary Porsche 550 Spyder of the 1950s (combined with Porsche's ...

driven by

Jos Verstappen Johannes Franciscus "Jos" Verstappen (; born 4 March 1972) is a Dutch racing and rally driver, who competes in the European Rally Championship as a privateer. Verstappen competed in Formula One between and . Born and raised in Dutch Limburg, ...

Jeroen Bleekemolen Jeroen Pascal Bleekemolen (born 23 October 1981 in Heemstede) is a Dutch professional Auto racing, racing driver. In the Chrysler Viper GTS-R he drove in the FIA GT Championship, with great success. He competed in the German Formula Three Champi ...

en Peter van Merksteijn. From 2007 through to 2011, Gerard Grouve was involved in the World Rally Championship as team manager for father and son Peter van Merksteijn. Having driven the

Ford Focus WRC The Ford Focus RS WRC is a car built for the Ford World Rally Team by Ford Europe and M-Sport and based on the Ford Focus Climate 2-litre production hatchback, developed to compete in the World Rally Championship. The RS stands for ''Rallye S ...

in 10

WRC WRC may refer to: Broadcasting stations * WRC-TV, a television station (virtual channel 4, digital channel 34) licensed to Washington, D.C., United States * Several radio stations in the Washington, D.C. area: ** WWRC, a radio station (570 AM) l ...

events, the team switched in 2011 to

Citroën Citroën ()The double-dot diacritic over the 'e' is a diaeresis () indicating the two vowels are sounded separately, and not as a diphthong. is a French automobile brand. The "Automobiles Citroën" manufacturing company was founded on 4 June 19 ...

where Grouve was responsible for their entry as an official WRC Team with the

Citroën DS3 WRC The Citroën DS3 WRC is the World Rally Car built for the Citroën World Rally Team by Citroën Racing for use from the 2011 World Rally Championship season. It is based upon the Citroën DS3 road car, and replaced the highly successful Ci ...

. Gerard Grouve has been involved in the start of the successful rally career of many Dutch drivers like Peter van Merksteijn Jr., Bernhard Ten Brinke and Dennis Kuipers. Under the leadership of Grouve, Van Merksteijn jr. won the Dutch championship group N in 2007, Bernhard Ten Brinke won in 2009 the Dutch championship in a Focus WRC 08 and was elected as Rookie of the Year in his first full year in the sport. Ipatec Racing with drivers René and Dennis Kuipers have called upon the experience of Gerard Grouve during their early years in the WRC for setup of their rally team and coaching of Dennis Kuipers during the start of his WRC career. During the 2009 edition of the Dakar Rally Gerard Grouve took care of the team management for Peter van Merksteijn sr. and René Kuipers, both driving a BMW X3CC within the X-Raid team. After parting with Van Merksteijn Motorsport as of January 2012, Gerard Grouve founded Grouve Sports Management Group, an independent management company that assist drivers and teams in motorsport with the realisation of their sporting dreams. The company also established a young driver program and is involved in sponsor finding in motorsport. Gerard Grouve was Dutch national coach from 2013-2016. Started as national coach for Rally sport in 2013/2014, Gerard became in 2015 the national coach for Racing as well. In his function as national coach he has supported Dutch young talented drivers for the Dutch ASN (KNAF KNAC Nederlandse autosport Federatie) with chairman Huub Dubbelman. Talents supported: 2013 - Leo van der Eijk, Mats van der Brand, Mike Veldhuisen (Rally) 2014 - Leo van der Eijk, Mats van der Brand (Rally), Max Verstappen (Racing) 2015 - Mats van der Brand (Rally), Larry ten Voorde (Racing)

References

* http://www.twentevisie.nl/magazines.aspx?ShowIpaper=313&Titel=Juni%202011 Page 18-19 * http://www.verstappen.nl/news/2008/03/1554.html * http://www.wrc.com/drivers-and-teams/teams/van-merksteijn-motorsport/?teamid=12 * http://www.tctubantia.nl/regio/hengelo/2829021/Grouve-met-Merksteijn-naar-Le-Mans.ece * http://www.rallybuzz.com/van-merksteijn-motorsport-quit-le-mans-series-concentrate-rallying/ * http://www.rallybuzz.com/van-merksteijn-citroends3wrc/ * http://www.endurance-info.com/static.php?subaction=showfull&id=1203636732&archive=&start_from=&ucat=3&op=communiques_index.txt&npds=1

External links

Grouve Sports Management Group website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grouve, Gerard 1961 births Dutch sports businesspeople Living people