I understand that the street cars of the french brands does not attract much attention, but all 3 brands under the PSA umbrella have a very long history in European motorsports, not least Le Mans, Formula racing and Rally. If I remember right it was Peugeot who took the last 2 seasons of the Group B championship....from Audi back in the mid 80's (85/86 I believe). 

In Le Mans Peugeot and now Porsche are the only ones who has been able to defeat Audi since 2000 (if we put a = between Audi and Bentley). 

In European formula racing Renault is very big and have been a steady producer of cars from their 2.0 liter NA cars to the GP2 competitor called Formula 3.5 World Series, which until a few years back was the serie just below F1 in Europe. Since 2013 two champions ended in F1 (Carlos Sainz and Kevin Magnussen).

On a lover level they have been very active in numerous one mark series of circuit racing (Renault 5 cup to the current Clio Cup etc for the other brands), but until the Renault RS01 came a few years ago, they never entered the GT market as the simply do not have a car for this segment.

I am sure you can do some more good night reading, there is plenty of motorsport history from these guys in Europe wink