The opening round to the 2026 British GT Championship proved itself to be yet another classic as after three hours of inter GT3 and GT4 class racing, the results were still all up for grabs until the very last lap.
Originally intended as a twenty-nine-car entry, a freak accident for one of the drivers during an earlier session had seen his thumb injury prevent him from taking any further part but that thankfully did not affect any of the five Aston Martin Racing powered runners.
Although somewhat dull and chilly to start, the warm spring sunshine soon warmed the full Grand Prix circuit layout as the British GT Championship prepared to run its Blue Ribband Silverstone 500 event as its opening round in-favour over an early start Easter race weekend from Oulton Park.
During yesterday’s qualifying, the #7 Beechdean AMR Vantage GT3 of Andrew Howard and Ross Gunn had to make do with a P10 starting position for today’s three-hour race as they prepared themselves for another tough campaign within the top-flight GT3 Pro-Am class.
GT4 was being well represented across the brands with four AMR Vantage GT4 powered crews competing in both Silver and Pro-Am. It was to be the silver classed #21 MK Racing Vantage GT4 of Will Orton and Jessica Hawkins who would lead the way today with their P3 starting position whilst the #27 Grange Racing AMR of Dan Lavery and Darren Turner lead their class stablemates of James Townsend/Joe Wheeler and the #97 GBR Stratton Motorsport entry of John Hartshorne and Ronan Pearson were all close behind in P4, P8 and P9 respectively.
After an emotional mark of respect to the recently lost of the Championship’s Pit Lane Manager Julze Batten Dale, the now twenty-eight strong grid assembled upon the National Pit Straight for what was always going to be a tough, strategic and fortune needed three-hour slog.
Early contact on the opening laps saw both Howard and Orton capitalise upon the mistakes of others to quickly move up the order as the #7 rose up to P3 overall and the #21 car headed the GT4 pack, but that earlier contact also lead to an early intervention of the Safety Car – something that many teams then changed race strategy with as a consequence.
After that, the race seemed to settle slightly as the #7 was holding station but Orton had had to yield to the greater pace of the #74 Ginetta before an apparent mistake from Townsend caught his #40 Aston Martin hurtling backwards into the gravel trap at the end of the Hamilton Straight – this time it was the first of what would become four FCY interventions to allow for recovery.
Finding themselves laps down after being pull free, the #40 Townsend Racing’s crew day would go from bad to worse as they then got one of many drive through penalties awarded to cars for speeding within the last FCY period – the #97 GBR Stratton and #27 Grange Racing crews were also impacted by this to a point of maybe the limiter function aboard all Vantage GT4 being not quite on point when it needed to be?
At about the halfway mark disaster, however, befell the #27 Grange Racing AMR with then Turner at the wheel as a reactionary move between two cars going into Brooklands saw the #27 car make heavy contact with the #84 McLaren from which there was no recovery for either. Although uninjured, the young Revie Lake was unnerved to give the former Le Mans winner his full bodily expression on how he saw that manoeuvre!
Another FCY opportunity for others to make another of their three mandatory stops which saw all remaining AMR powered crews revert back to their starting drivers as the race entered this central phase but, at the restart, two separate GT3 related incidents on track again saw the yellow flags wave.
With an hour to go Howard was still holding a worthy P3 overall position whilst Orton was still trying to chase down the #74 Ginetta in GT4 whilst Howard over tried his defence of position to come out two places worse off as a result. Whilst the #97 GBR Stratton car was being given yet another drive through penalty for speeding under a FCY, an unseen incident between the #7 Aston and #15 Mercedes saw Howard off track and having to restart the car after probable contact. Able to get going again, the #7 had lost significant track position.
Then, and with just thirty minutes remaining but, a fourth FCY intervention brought the remaining grid back behind the Safety Car again for what would turn out to be a final seven-minute charge to the flag. Despite that, three AMR powered crews manage to either elevate or maintain their positions to bring home an opening class podium position at the end of this 500km race.
The #7 Beechdean AMR crew of Howard and Gunn picked up a P3 finishing within their GT3 Pro-Am class, the #21 MK Racing crew of Orton and Hawkins picked up a well-deserved P2 overall (and Silver) finish whilst (and despite all of their earlier drive through penalties and issues on track) saw the #97 GBR Stratton crew of Hartshorne and Pearson pick off a P3 GT4 Pro-Am finish for their efforts.
Next stop will be from Oulton Park in late May.
Photo credits – Jacob Ebrey / Phil Hay