Century Motorsport took Free Practice, whilst British GT Championship debutant Chris Lulham stormed to the top of Pre-Qualifying for 2 Seas Motorsport in a pair of one-hour sessions that were notable for how calm they were, with the field no doubt saving themselves for a crucial qualifying session at the penultimate round of 2026.
In GT4, Paddock Motorsport’s Revie Lake set the pace first thing, before Jordan Collard rolled back the clock as he defied his near four-year pause in racing to star in a GBR Stratton Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage he’s guesting in for the rest of the season.
Free Practice
With plenty of testing completed on Thursday, and Friday rain washing away much of the rubber laid down by the field, it was probably no surprise that the opening official session of the British GT Championship’s penultimate round was a relatively sedate affair. Teams looked to cope with a low grip surface without changing too much of the set-up, knowing that the conditions will get back into their favour as more laps get put in the books at the Donington Park circuit.
With that sense of caution in mind, it seemed as though this session was dedicated more to long-run race practice rather than trying to set the fastest laps – that can be dedicated to Pre-Qualifying – but it was championship leader Morgan Tillbrook who set the pace for much of the session after an early flurry of laps sharing the top spot around fellow contenders Alex Martin and Simon Orange.
But it was Tillbrook’s benchmark of 1m26.773sec in the Optimum McLaren 720S GT3 Evo that set the pace for much of the session as he and co-driver Ben Barnicoat got the laps locked in.
Indeed, it was only until the closing 20 minutes of the hour-long session that someone really troubled the times as Century Motorsport’s Charles Clark put two back-to-back quick laps in to drop the target time all the way down to a 1m26.030sec, a full six-tenths faster than the competition which were disinclined to try and chase him down.
The closest anyone got was Martin’s co-driver Hugo Cook, who put in a 1m26.646sec in his Barwell Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 to squeeze ahead of the Optimum Motorsport machine by a tenth of a second. In fact, most of the times in GT3 were pretty tightly packed if you discount Clark’s thunderous run to the top.
Cameron Campell and Josh Buchan finished fourth, just 0.088sec down in their Rodin Motorsport Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo which caused a premature end to the session as they brought out the red flag with 30sec left on the clock having got themselves stuck in the Old Hairpin gravel trap – one of a number of cars looking more like ice skaters than racing machines as the field skittered down the Craner Curves.
Optimum’s second GT3 of Callum Macleod and Mike Price took fifth, despite losing the last two minutes of the session to a stop/go penalty for repeated track limits offences, they finished just 0.001sec ahead of Orange and Marcus Clutton in the McLaren engineered by Orange Racing with JMH.
Unable to improve on their early benchmark, Martin and Jarrod Waberski finished seventh in their Barwell Lamborghini, exactly 1.001sec off the fastest time.
In GT4, things were slightly more fluid at the top, but that’s not particularly saying much. Revie Lake ended up on top in his Paddock Motorsport McLaren Artura as the musical chairs stopped having traded fastest times with both Jack Mitchell in the Toro Verde GT Ginetta G56 GT4 Evo and Tom Bradshaw in the Toro Verde Porsche.
Lake’s best time of a 1m34.391sec was only 0.007sec faster than Mitchell’s time, with Bradshaw three-tenths further back, the car having gone missing toward the closing minutes of the session with Ian Duggan behind the wheel, suffering from an oil pump issue.
Fourth went the way of Colin Turkington in the WSR Flexifly BMW M4 GT4 Evo, sneaking ahead of fellow Pro-Am competitor Darren Turner by 0.018sec.
Notably, it was a relatively tough session for the top two in the championship as Jessica Hawkins and Will Orton could only take eighth in their MK Racing Aston Martin Vantage, just under 1.1sec off the fastest time. That said, they had a better run of things than nearest rivals Thomas Holland and Hadley Simpson as their Innovation Racing-run Ginetta broke a driveshaft coming out of the Melbourne Hairpin with 40 minutes of the session still to go.
The team did a great job in getting the issue fixed and letting the pair get out to clock a few more laps, but they only managed 12 laps in the session and were stuck down in 10th, albeit 0.014sec down on the best time for the Hawkins/Orton Aston.
Pre-Qualifying
If Practice was sedate, Pre-Qualifying was basically serene with a pretty calm hour of running over lunch time at Donington, with teams fettling set-ups for the afternoon’s Qualifying session but not wanting to burn through too many sets of tyres or risk damaging the car.
That, possibly, explains the gentile start to the running, with Tillbrook initially fastest for a time before Marcus Clutton moves up to a 1m27.152sec. Running slower than the morning’s practice session, it took until really the final 15 minutes of the session for times to drop to some extent but even then not by very much. It was Waberski who struck first, going up to a 1m26.889sec to put himself 0.010sec up on Clutton who had improved his time slightly.
But then it was debutant Chris Lulham, replacing Ben Green in the 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, who proved why he’s becoming such a star behind the wheel of the three-pointed star as he stormed up to a 1m26.266sec to put a decent advantage between himself and the rest of the field.
As the chequered flag loomed larger, no one could challenge Lulham’s hold on the top of the times but Hugo Cook got close; going 0.048sec down on the Mercedes. Everyone else was a quarter-of-a-second back with the second Barwell entry of Waberski and Martin taking thirds, another 0.240sec ahead of Clark and Jonathan Beeson who are running strongly so far in their BMW.
Fifth went to Tillbrook and Ben Barnicoat, with the Orange Racing with JMH entry sixth by 0.015sec.
In GT4, things were slightly more energetic and indeed it was Jordan Collard, who is sitting in alongside John Hartshorne this weekend to replace the ill Ronan Pearson, who is getting everything he can out of his first British GT weekend since 2022. He put the GBR Stratton Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage to the top of the times with his 30th, and last, lap of the session to pip erstwhile top spotter Jack Mitchell by 0.024sec.
The Ginetta racer had a good session alongside teammate Luke Shaw, with one Toro Verde car at least running well. The team’s Porsche that had finished third in Free Practice has been taken away from the circuit to fix a problem with the car’s oil pump.
Third went to Colin Turkington and Ernie Graham, the former getting up to speed quickly and ensuring the top three in the class were split by less than 0.1sec.
Almost half-a-second back in fourth – top of the Silver Cup entries – was the Holland/Simpson Innovation Ginetta which ran a lot more smoothly compared to the morning’s session. Their title rivals Will Orton and Jessica Hawkins struggled somewhat, only ninth in their Vantage and one second back on the pace-setting Aston of GBR Stratton.
