After a two-hour and then a three-hour race, the British GT Championship is getting into the Sprints this weekend with a pair of one-hour races at Oulton Park. 

OULTON PARK: ENTRY LIST | TIMETABLE 

Moved from its usual Easter weekend, opening round, slot, the two 60-minute encounters will still follow the usual format in England’s North West with practice and qualifying on Saturday before a day off and the two races taking place on Monday. 

23 cars – one of the lowest British GT grids in some time – get set to travel to Oulton as the GT4 field in particular shrinks by four cars with this being the first round of the year without the GT4 Endurance Cup entries. That means no second Team Parker Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4 for Jon Currie & Phil Keen, and no Jolt Racing McLaren Artura, Rob Boston Racing Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport, or MKH Racing Aston Martin Vantage. 

GT3 is remaining solid at the original 15, and what is a relative lightness in numbers should be made up for in action. When it’s good, racing through the trees at Oulton is some of the most exciting action you’ll see all year.

Looking to capitalise on the action is Kiern Jewiss and Charles Dawson. The 2 Seas Motorsport pair lead the way thanks to an opening round win at Donington and second at Silverstone, but the points for first because of Paradine Competition’s Darren Leung & Dan Harper only being one-off. 

They’re 30 points ahead of Morgan Tillbrook and Marvin Kirchhöfer, as the Optimum Motorsport pair get up to speed in their McLaren 720S GT3 Evo at a track where qualifying is key. Handy, then, that the duo stormed to pole last time out at Silverstone.

But there’s competition afoot – Barwell Motorsport took both poles last year, and three of its four drivers from 12 months ago are still aboard the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2s. Rob Collard took pole and race one win – last year it was with son Ricky this year it’s with Hugo Cook. Meanwhile the same duo from last year, Alex Martin & Sandy Mitchell, look to replicate their own conversion of pole to a win. 

In GT4, things are a lot tighter with Optimum’s Jack Brown & Marc Warren mirroring the results of Century Motorsport’s Ravi Ramyead and Charlie Robertson. The former duo took the win at Donington in their McLaren, while the latter took second in their BMW M4 GT4 Evo. Come Silverstone and the positions were reversed meaning they’re locked at the top of the table with 64.5 points. 

This weekend, then, could be another stalemate – or it could be the chance for one crew to pull clear. Others, though, will be snapping at their heels with Ed McDermott and Seb Morris 30 points down in their Team Parker Mercedes but with 25 points for a win in each of the one-hour races there’s a good chance they could close the gap. 

The same could be said for the second Century entry of Chris Salkeld and Branden Templeton. Three points behind McDermott & Morris, and with their two rival pairs behind Endurance Cup entries, Salkeld and Templeton have the opportunity to bring up the rear in a four-car breakaway at the top of the points. 

At the opposite end of the table, will this finally be the spark Mahiki Racing needs to start banking some good results? In practice and qualifying, the Lotus Emira GT4s are the class of the field – speed in metal form. Come the race though, and the results speak for themselves. Six races (between the three entries) and there’s three retirements – two alone for Steven Lake and Jack Mitchell. Endurance seems to be the issue for the Norfolk machines, could the shorter races be a platform for success?

Find out across the weekend. On Saturday (all times are local to the UK, so add an hour for Europe) Free Practice gets underway at 9.20am, Pre-Qualifying is at 11.55am and qualifying gets underway at 3.45pm. 

Sunday is a quiet day so that means Monday – a bank holiday in the UK – is host to the racing. Warm-Up is at 9.05am, Race One is at 10.45am, and the final action of the weekend gets underway at 3.50pm for the final race. 

All the action will be live on GT REPORT with reports after every session, and the races will be streamed on GT.REPORT/watchlive.