Following the end of the World Sportscar Championship in 1992, European top-level sports car racing had been left without a coherent home. The FIA GT Championship, launched in 1994, focused on closed-cockpit grand touring cars rather than prototypes. Inspired by developments in North America, where the IMSA series had returned to open-cockpit sportscars after abandoning the expensive closed-cockpit Group C formula, John Mangoletsi developed the International Sports Racing Series in 1997 as a European open-prototype championship.
The series admitted cars to two classes. The SR1 class was for cars with engines up to 6000cc if naturally aspirated or 4000cc if supercharged, directly comparable to the LMP class cars at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The SR2 class was for smaller cars using production-based engines of no more than six cylinders and a maximum 3000cc displacement, similar to the CN hillclimb category. The series attracted significant support from established teams including Rafanelli, Riley and Scott, Kremer Racing, Joest Racing, and Konrad Motorsport, along with manufacturer involvement from Ferrari.
Ferrari's 333 SP sports racer became the dominant car in SR1 from the series' earliest seasons, attracting a large number of entrants and firmly establishing the chassis as the benchmark for the category. Rivals including Riley and Scott, Lola, and other manufacturers attempted to challenge Ferrari's supremacy but with limited success. The 333 SP's dominance reflected Ferrari's sustained investment in the platform through the mid-to-late 1990s.
In 1999, the series received formal FIA recognition and was renamed the Sports Racing World Cup. This change elevated the championship's status and signaled the FIA's intent to support open-prototype racing in Europe as a distinct discipline. The series continued to develop its rulebook in parallel with discussions between European and North American organizers about potential regulatory convergence.
In 2001, the FIA took direct control of the series and renamed it the FIA Sportscar Championship. This move was intended to establish the championship as a credible international platform and included a partnership with Grand-Am Road Racing in the United States, involving shared races and eventual regulatory alignment. At the time of this takeover, the FIA Sportscar Championship's SR1 class ran under specifications directly parallel to the JGTC prototype rules, and Grand-Am was initially fielding similar cars.
However, the creation of the American Le Mans Series in 1999 and the European Le Mans Series in 2001 drew away many of the top teams and manufacturers that might otherwise have competed in the FIA Sportscar Championship. Grand-Am also diverged from the shared regulatory path in 2003 by adopting its own tube-frame Daytona Prototype concept and phasing out its SRP classes. With entry numbers declining and competing series absorbing the top tier of the sportscar market, the FIA Sportscar Championship folded after the 2003 season.
The FIA chose to redirect its sportscar support toward the new Le Mans Endurance Series, which debuted in 2004 and eventually became the European Le Mans Series in its contemporary form. The ISRS and its successors occupied an important transitional period in European sports car racing between the Group C era and the consolidated Le Mans prototype structure that emerged after 2004. The series demonstrated sustained interest in open-prototype racing among European constructors and teams, even as the commercial and regulatory environment shifted against a standalone championship outside the Le Mans ecosystem.