Gerard Grouve

Gerard Grouve (born 13-10-1961) is a Dutch autosport team director and currently responsible for the World Rally Championship involvement of Van Merksteijn Motorsport.

Grouve started his career in 1985 as co-driver for Peter Van Merksteijn, Sr. in the Audi 80 quattro and the Ford Sierra Cosworth 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 reassumed his motorsport career as team principal of System Force Motorsport competing in Porsche Supercup and from 2002 in Belcar, FIA GT Championship, Grand-Am 24 hours of Daytona and Le Mans Series with a Porsche 996 GT3 RS. The team ran in 2005 a Spyker C8 Spyder GT2-R during 2 races in the Le Mans Series and the ALMS 12 Hours of Sebring.

In 2008, Grouve was director of the newly formed team of Van Merksteijn Motorsport which won the 24 hours of Le Mans and the Le Mans Series in LMP2 with the Porsche RS Spyder driven by Jos Verstappen, Jeroen Bleekemolen en Peter van Merksteijn.

As of 2007, Gerard Grouve is involved in the World Rally Championship as team manager for father and son Peter van Merksteijn. Having first driven the Ford Focus WRC in 10 WRC events, the team switched in 2011 to Citroën where Grouve is responsible for the entry as an official WRC Team with the Citroën DS3 WRC.

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 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.

Reference

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

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