Under Gordon Bennett Cup rules, the host nation for each edition was determined by the nationality of the previous winner. France had won both prior editions — 1900 and 1901 — so the ACF organised a third successive French-hosted event. The French government had banned motor racing following the death of a child at the 1901 Paris-Berlin race, and negotiations were required before the ban was lifted. Switzerland, where a section of the route lay, maintained its own racing ban; an agreement was struck to neutralise the Swiss section, imposing a 15 mph speed limit enforced by police using a telephone network along the route. Only the Automobile Club of Britain and Ireland registered to challenge France for the cup, making this a two-nation contest.
The course was split across three consecutive days over 565 km of the Paris–Vienna route. The first section ran 375 km from Champigny-sur-Marne, south-east of Paris, through Nangis, Troyes, Langres, and on to Belfort. The second section was a 312 km neutralised transit through Switzerland, from Belfort through Basel and Zurich and across the Austrian border to Bregenz — this distance did not count toward race totals. The third racing section covered 190 km from Bregenz east through the Arlberg mountain pass — reaching nearly 5,000 feet — and on to Innsbruck.
France entered Léonce Girardot in a Charron-Girardot-Voigt, Henri Fournier in a Mors, and Rene de Knyff in a Panhard. Britain fielded Selwyn Edge in a Napier and two Wolseleys for Montague Grahame-White and Arthur Callan. New regulations imposed a maximum weight limit of 1,000 kg per car. The French manufacturers adapted existing designs to meet this limit, while Napier built an entirely new car designed from the outset for the regulations, resulting in the Napier weighing 933 kg — lighter than most rivals — with full fuel tanks.
Cars departed from Champigny-sur-Marne at two-minute intervals from 3:30 am on 26 June. Edge had to repair his Napier's gearbox twice before the start but made the grid in time. Grahame-White's Wolseley suffered a broken crankshaft on the approach to the start, requiring over five hours of repairs; Callan also failed to reach Belfort.
Among the French entries, Girardot retired at Troyes, 140 km in, with a cracked fuel tank, and Fournier retired 10 km before Langres with a failed clutch. De Knyff led the remaining Gordon Bennett field — and the entire Paris–Vienna entry — through Belfort at the end of the first section, with Edge more than 90 minutes behind.
The neutralised Swiss section put strain on cars despite the enforced low speed; de Knyff's Panhard developed a crack in its differential casing on the rough Swiss roads. Racing resumed at Bregenz for the final section over the Arlberg. Forty kilometres from Innsbruck, de Knyff's damaged differential finally failed on the pass climb, forcing his retirement. Grahame-White's crankshaft also broke in the mountains. Edge, now the sole remaining competitor, needed only to complete the course. He reached Innsbruck in a total time of 11 hours, 2 minutes, and 52.6 seconds, though found on inspection at the bottom of the Arlberg descent that tools and spare parts had fallen from the car during the descent.
A protest was raised alleging Edge had received illegal assistance during the race. The protest was eventually dropped at de Knyff's insistence. Edge continued to the Paris–Vienna finish, placing 11th overall; Marcel Renault won the city-to-city race outright.
The British victory had significant consequences. France, embarrassed by the loss of the trophy for the first time, committed to far more serious preparation for future editions. This renewed rivalry boosted the event's prestige, and from 1903 onward every Gordon Bennett race was held as a standalone event rather than a subsidiary of a larger city-to-city race. For Napier, Edge's win drove sales sharply upward — annual production increased from 100 to 250 cars, necessitating a factory move from Lambeth to Acton. The race also shifted design philosophy: the success of the lighter, more fuel-efficient Napier over brute-force larger-engined French cars led engineers across the industry to prioritise power-to-weight ratio over raw displacement.