Jesús Pareja

Jesús Ángel Pareja Mayo (born 6 March 1955) is a retired Spanish racing driver. Pareja drove in the FIA World Sports-Prototype Championship, the Spanish Touring Car Championship and Global GT Championship.

The 1990 Montreal incident

Pareja was involved in a massive accident during the 1990 WSPC round at Montreal. On his 59th lap driving a Porsche 962C entered by (and shared with) Walter Brun, he hit a fragment of a manhole cover which had been torn out of the ground by a car further ahead. Several cars hit the debris but Pareja was especially unfortunate. His fuel tank was ruptured and the car immediately burst into flames. Remarkably, the marshals were able to put the fire out and rescue Pareja.

Later career

Pareja was a winner of the Le Mans 24 hours in the GT2 class in 1994.

From 1999, Pareja had been involved with the running of the European GT Championship]and the Spanish Formula Three Championship. He is the founder and CEO of GT Sport which was created in 1998 and runs the International GT Open and the Euroformula Open. Jesús made select appearances on the racing circuit, with one of the most memorable being the 2007 Martini Legends race in Barcelona. There, he raced alongside motorsport icons such as the legendary Brazilian Emerson Fittipaldi, a two-time Formula 1 world champion; the French endurance specialist Henri Pescarolo, celebrated for his victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans; and the Spanish driver Marc Gené. For this event, Jesús drove the iconic Porsche 917—the same car David Piper piloted in the classic film Le Mans, starring Steve McQueen.

A decade later, in 2017, the World Motor Sport Council gave GT Sport the green light during its Vienna meeting to organize both a European Touring Car Championship (TC Open) and an annual 1,000-kilometer endurance race (GT Open 1000).

The following year, Pareja received the prestigious “Gold Badge” from the Royal Spanish Automobile Federation, honoring his achievements as both a driver and a key figure in promoting the sport.

Racing results 24 Hours of Le Mans results