Words by Chris Holdsworth | Outlaw Photography ©
Images provided by Jamie Nash & Kaelan Stallman-Gill
Simon Orange and Marcus Clutton overturned a 21.5-point deficit to win both the Brands Hatch finale and the 2026 British GT3 Championship, while Daniel Lavery and Darren Turner survived a last-lap GT4 showdown to claim the second title of a dramatic afternoon.
Seven races across five events had brought the British GT Championship to one final two-hour race at Brands Hatch. Neither overall title had been decided, and five crews remained in contention in both GT3 and GT4.
Rob Collard and Hugo Cook arrived with a 15.5-point advantage for Barwell Motorsport, while the GT4 championship was even closer. Thomas Holland and Hadley Simpson were level with Branden Templeton and Jack Collins at the top, with several others still within reach.
By Sunday afternoon, almost every calculation made before the start had been rewritten.
Qualifying
Saturday gave an early indication that the championship finale might not be straightforward, with qualifying interrupted by two separate red flags.
The first came during GT3 Q2 when Ross Gunn crashed heavily in the #7 Beechdean Aston Martin at Clearways. From trackside, the car appeared to bottom out over a bump on turn-in before running through the gravel and hitting the barrier.
The session was stopped with just under four minutes remaining, leaving the field with very little time when qualifying resumed.
Chris Lulham’s first quick lap after the restart was deleted for gaining an advantage at Turn 6, leaving him one final attempt. He made it count, giving the #18 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes-AMG, shared with Kevin Tse, pole with a combined time of 2:47.188.
Championship leaders Collard and Cook qualified alongside them in second, with Orange and Clutton third and Morgan Tillbrook and Ben Barnicoat fourth. Just 0.210 seconds covered the first four cars.
The second red flag came in GT4 qualifying when James Townsend spun the #40 Aston Martin deep into the gravel at Paddock Hill. The stoppage ended the session early and prevented several drivers from improving.
Josh Stanton and George Gamble took GT4 pole in the #59 Optimum Motorsport McLaren, ahead of Paddock Motorsport’s Revie Lake and Blake Angliss. Behind them, the main championship contenders were spread throughout the leading positions.
The championship turns at Sheene
The race began with a little elbows-out racing through the opening corners, but Collard wasted no time establishing himself at the front.
Starting alongside Tse, he swept around the outside at Paddock Hill Bend before completing the move at Druids. Orange also began moving forward and later took second when Tse ran wide at Stirling’s.
Soon Collard and Orange were beginning to pull away.
With just over an hour remaining Collard still led Orange, Tse and Tillbrook, and the championship appeared to be under control for Barwell.
Less than two minutes later, that picture had completely changed.
Collard lost the #63 Lamborghini at Sheene, sending up plumes of dust as the car ran deep into the gravel and became beached. Orange inherited the lead while Collard dropped down the order as recovery began under Full Course Yellow conditions.
By the time the Lamborghini returned, the championship advantage Collard and Cook had carried into Brands Hatch had effectively disappeared. They would eventually finish three laps behind the winner.
Orange suddenly had much more than a race victory in front of him.
Following the mandatory stops, Marcus Clutton emerged with a healthy lead. Barnicoat worked his way into second in the #77 Optimum McLaren and became the remaining championship threat, but the gap was simply too large.
Clutton controlled the final part of the race and crossed the line 16.510 seconds ahead.
Starting the weekend 21.5 points adrift, Orange and Clutton needed the finale to swing heavily in their favour. It did. Victory transformed an outside chance into the British GT3 crown.
The result also carried some history. It was Orange’s first outright British GT victory, while McLaren had not produced the senior-class drivers’ champions since Steve O’Rourke and Tim Sugden raced the EMKA F1 GTR LT in 1998.
Orange and Clutton finished the season on 138.5 points, six clear of Tillbrook and Barnicoat.
Marc Warren and Jack Brown initially completed an all-McLaren podium in the #90 Optimum car, finishing just over half a second ahead of the Century Motorsport BMW. Their result was later removed when the McLaren was found to be underweight during post-race technical checks.
That promoted Jonathon Beeson and Charles Clark to third overall and the GT3 Silver-Am race victory.
Alex Martin and Jarrod Waberski finished fourth for Barwell and secured the Silver-Am championship, while Waberski also claimed the SRO GT Academy prize drive for the 2027 24 Hours of Spa.
There was also an emotional conclusion further down the order. Andrew Howard and Ross Gunn brought the Beechdean Aston Martin home fifth in Howard’s 157th and final British GT start.
Barwell still left Brands Hatch with silverware. The team secured its eighth British GT teams’ championship, while Collard became the inaugural Masters champion.
GT4 goes to the final corner
At the front of GT4, the race itself was much more straightforward.
Gamble converted pole into the early class lead and, together with Stanton, controlled the race in the #59 Optimum McLaren. They eventually won comfortably.
Behind them, the championship was anything but settled.
With 57 minutes remaining, Innovation Racing’s title challenge took a major hit when the #74 Ginetta suffered a left-rear puncture. Hadley Simpson dropped out of contention and the car would become the race’s only retirement.
Branden Templeton and Jack Collins then briefly appeared well placed in the Century BMW before the pit-stop sequence reshuffled the order again.
That brought Daniel Lavery and Darren Turner firmly into the championship fight with the #27 Grange Racing by FSR Aston Martin.
With less than 20 minutes remaining, the key contenders were running together. Turner held second in GT4, with Jack Mitchell’s #42 Toro Verde Ginetta third and Will Orton’s #21 MK Racing Aston Martin fourth.
Turner was forced to defend from Mitchell while Orton waited directly behind, knowing that every position mattered.
Contact between Turner and Mitchell at Druids allowed Orton through and put the two Aston Martins together with only minutes remaining.
The championship equation had become brutally simple. Lavery and Turner and Jessica Hawkins and Orton were level on points, but Grange held the advantage on countback.
Orton had to pass.
He had one final opportunity.
A strong run out of Stirling’s put Orton onto Turner through Clearways. With nowhere else to go, he committed to the inside at Clark Curve, put wheels onto the grass and lost just enough momentum.
Turner reached the line 0.250 seconds ahead.
That quarter of a second decided the championship.
Lavery and Turner and Hawkins and Orton both finished the season on 143.5 points, with the overall GT4 title going to the Grange Racing pairing on countback.
Hawkins and Orton could at least celebrate the GT4 Silver championship, while Grange Racing by FSR added the GT4 teams’ title in its first British GT season.
Stanton and Gamble may have dominated the race itself, but almost all of the attention at the finish was several seconds behind them.
A finale that refused to follow the script
Brands Hatch ultimately decided its two championships in very different ways.
In GT3, the entire picture changed within moments. Collard had been leading the race and championship with just over an hour remaining. Minutes later his Lamborghini sat beached in the Sheene gravel beneath a cloud of dust.
Orange and Clutton were there to take advantage, and once the opportunity appeared they didn’t give it back.
GT4 was different. Its title moved between contenders throughout the afternoon and remained unresolved until the final few hundred metres of the season.
Orange and Clutton arrived at Brands Hatch as outsiders and left as British GT champions.
Lavery and Turner needed almost every inch of the circuit to achieve the same thing.
After eight races, the 2026 British GT Championship was finally settled.
Final results
GT3: #67 Orange/Clutton, Orange Racing by JMH McLaren; #77 Tillbrook/Barnicoat, Optimum Motorsport McLaren, +16.510s; #44 Beeson/Clark, Century Motorsport BMW, +35.192s; #78 Martin/Waberski, Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini, +53.079s; #7 Howard/Gunn, Beechdean Aston Martin, +53.885s.
GT4: #59 Stanton/Gamble, Optimum Motorsport McLaren; #27 Lavery/Turner, Grange Racing by FSR Aston Martin; #21 Hawkins/Orton, MK Racing Aston Martin; #42 Shaw/Mitchell, Toro Verde GT Ginetta; #84 Lake/Angliss, Paddock Motorsport McLaren.
