The championship began in 1991 and adopted the "Eurocup Formula Renault" name in 1993. A further rebrand in 2000 saw it become the Formula Renault 2000 Eurocup, then Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 from 2005 onward — with the exception of the 2003 season, briefly called the Formula Renault 2000 Masters.
For a decade from 2005 to 2015, the Eurocup operated as a support series to the Formula Renault 3.5 Series as part of the World Series by Renault. During this period, Renault Sport offered a prize of €500,000 to the Eurocup champion, providing a funded graduation path into the higher formula. This incentive drove a strong pipeline: champions and frontrunners from the Eurocup regularly stepped up to FR 3.5 in the following season, making the competition a genuine audition ground for factory Renault backing.
The champion-to-FR3.5 pipeline was consistent throughout the series' peak years. The 2006 champion Filipe Albuquerque was among the first to graduate directly to FR 3.5 on a full-time basis for the 2007 season, alongside fourth-place finisher Bertrand Baguette and Xavier Maassen.
Brendan Hartley, the 2007 champion, chose a different path and moved first to the British Formula Three Championship rather than FR 3.5. The 2008 champion Valtteri Bottas similarly stepped sideways, moving to the Formula 3 Euro Series, where he continued his development before eventually reaching Formula One. The 2009 champion Albert Costa used the Renault prize money to fund his FR 3.5 graduation, joined by Nathanaël Berthon.
Kevin Korjus won in 2010, with Arthur Pic, Daniël de Jong and André Negrão also moving to FR 3.5 in 2011. Robin Frijns, the 2011 champion, achieved a notable double by winning both the Eurocup and the FR 3.5 Series in consecutive years — the first driver to accomplish the back-to-back feat. Stoffel Vandoorne took the title in 2012, and Norman Nato was a frontrunner alongside him before both graduated to FR 3.5 in 2013.
Pierre Gasly and Oliver Rowland fought closely for the 2013 Eurocup title into the final round, both then graduating to FR 3.5 in 2014 alongside Luca Ghiotto, Matthieu Vaxivière and Roman Mavlanov. Nyck de Vries dominated the 2014 season and moved up to FR 3.5 in 2015.
All competitors raced identical machinery to maintain a level playing field. The chassis was the FR2.0/13, built with carbon-fibre bodywork at Alpine's Dieppe plant — a Renault subsidiary — with aerodynamic kit designed by Tatuus. The engine was the Renault F4R 832, a four-cylinder 16-valve 1,998cc unit producing 210 bhp at 7,500 rpm and 220 Nm of torque at 5,500 rpm. Transmission was a SADEV seven-speed sequential gearbox with semi-automatic, steering-wheel-mounted shift control.
Suspension used ZF Race Engineering components: a single two-way adjustable damper at the front and a double two-way adjustable arrangement at the rear. Brakes were four-piston calipers with 278 × 18 mm steel discs. Michelin supplied tyres, sized 20-54 × 13 at the front and 24-57 × 13 at the rear. The car measured 4,270 mm in length, 1,740 mm wide, and 950 mm tall, with a minimum unloaded weight of 506 kg.
The Formula Renault Eurocup served as a premier European junior single-seater championship for nearly three decades, bridging karting and the professional open-wheel ladder. Its alumni roster, which includes future Formula One regulars and world champions, underlines the quality of competition the series consistently attracted. The 2021 merger with the Formula Regional European Championship — rebranded as the Formula Regional European Championship certified by FIA — continued the spirit of the Eurocup under a new regulatory framework aligned with modern FIA regional Formula 3 standards.