The 2026 International GT Open season finished in Barcelona with one of the tightest championships of the year. Tom Emson and Tom Lebbon took the drivers’ title for Elite Motorsport in their Ferrari, ending on 148 points — one clear of Zac Meakin. Dean Macdonald finished third, and Greystone GT claimed the teams championship.
Eight rounds across Europe came down to the final race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Consistency, race wins and the ability to perform under pressure decided it.
Eight rounds, one title
The season ran from Portimão to Barcelona and took in Spa, Misano, the Hungaroring, Paul Ricard, Hockenheim and Monza along the way. The leading contenders stayed close enough that the last weekend mattered.
Emson and Lebbon finished on 148 points with six race wins. Their main rivals, Zac Meakin and Dean Macdonald in the Greystone GT McLaren, stayed in the fight until the final laps.
The final table tells the story. Meakin ended second on 147 points. Macdonald was third on 142. Alex Fontana and Pietro Armanni took fourth for ZRS Motorsport in a Porsche with 136 points. Christian Mansell and Maximilian Götz completed the top five on 117 points for Team Motopark in a Mercedes. Leonardo Moncini and Rodrigo Testa were sixth on 94, while Rafael Durán finished seventh on 59.
GT OPEN showed that even a small lead can vanish in a single weekend.
Barcelona: title decided at the finish
Emson and Lebbon arrived with a 16-point cushion over Meakin and Macdonald. Saturday changed everything. An incident at the first corner left the championship leaders without points, while the Greystone GT McLaren finished third. Mansell and Götz won for Team Motopark, ahead of Fontana and Armanni.
That cut the gap to six points heading into Sunday. Macdonald took pole. The title-leading Ferrari started seventh.
Greystone GT controlled large parts of the race and eventually won it, with Meakin and Macdonald doing the job on track. The championship was still alive behind them. Lebbon had to fight McKenzie Cresswell for third, the pair swapping places twice before the Ferrari held the position by seven tenths of a second.
That third place was enough. Emson and Lebbon finished the season one point ahead of Meakin. Greystone GT took the teams title even though they missed out on the drivers’ crown by the narrowest margin.
It was a proper end to a season that forced the leaders to recover from a bad Saturday and defend under real pressure on Sunday.
Porsche and Mercedes in the mix
While the title fight took the headlines, other teams and manufacturers had strong seasons too.
Fontana and Armanni finished third overall on 136 points and made the ZRS Motorsport Porsche one of the most consistent cars all year. Their second place on Sunday in Barcelona gave them a solid finish.
Mansell and Götz also left their mark with the Team Motopark Mercedes. Their Saturday win in Barcelona showed they could run at the front, and they ended fifth on 117 points.
Ferrari, McLaren, Porsche and Mercedes all featured among the leading pairings across the season.
Pro-Am and Am titles decided
The final weekend also settled the Pro-Am and Am GT OPEN championships.
Charlie Bateman and Henrique Chaves took the Pro-Am title with Blackthorn Motorsport’s Aston Martin. A sixth-place class finish in the last race was enough, even on a difficult afternoon. Marcin Jedliński and Karol Basz scored their first class win of the season for Olimp Racing in an Audi.
In Am, Joel Monegro secured the championship in a Porsche for Fach Auto Tech and became the first Dominican driver to win a GT title in Europe. Krystian Korzeniowski took both Am victories in Barcelona.
The depth of the field was clear: the season finale delivered real battles beyond the overall standings.
Spanish drivers at home
The final round also brought solid results for the Spanish drivers.
Rafael Durán, sharing the AF Corse Ferrari with Tommaso Mosca, finished fifth on Sunday after ninth on Saturday. Alejandro Geppert and Ben Dörr, in the SMC Motorsport McLaren, were tenth and eleventh across the two races.
For Durán, fifth place was a positive way to end the weekend at his home circuit.
Decided by the smallest margin
The 2026 International GT Open season produced a championship won by a single point, six victories for Emson and Lebbon, and a final weekend in Barcelona that kept the pressure on until the end.
Elite Motorsport took the drivers’ title with its Ferrari pairing. Greystone GT left with the teams championship after pushing the fight to the last moments. Fontana and Armanni completed the top three, while Pro-Am and Am crowned their own champions.
In the end the difference between winning and losing the drivers’ title came down to one position in the final race. For Emson and Lebbon, holding third was enough. For Meakin and Macdonald, the win came just too late to close the gap.
In GT racing, winning races helps but collecting points consistently and delivering when it matters most is what decides championships.
*All images were extracted from GT Open Media*
https://enduvision.com/wec-barcelona-a-successful-debut-and-whats-next/
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