Career
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. Grouve started his career in 1985 as co-driver for Peter van Merksteijn Senior 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 ressumed his motorsport career as team principal of System Force Motorsport competing in the 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.
Having driven the Ford Focus WRC in 10 WRC events, the team switched in 2011 to Citroën where Grouve was responsible for their 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 Junior., Bernhard Ten Brinke and Dennis Kuipers. Under the leadership of Grouve, Van Merksteijn junior
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 senior and René Kuipers, both driving a Bayerische Motoren Werke 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.
